Defending a New Nation 1783–1811

The U.S. Army Campaigns

of the War of 1812
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CMH Pub 74–1
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Defending a New Nation

1783–1811

by

John R. Maass

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Center of Military History

United States Army 

Washington, D.C., 2013

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Introduction

The War of 1812 is perhaps the United States’ least known conflict. Other than Andrew Jackson’s 1815 victory at New Orleans and 

Francis Scott Key’s poem “The Star-Spangled Banner” written in 

1814 during the British attack on Baltimore, most Americans know 

little about the country’s second major war. Its causes are still debated 

by historians today. Great Britain’s impressment of American sailors, 

its seizure of American ships on the high seas, and suspected British 

encouragement of Indian opposition to further American settlement 

on the western frontier all contributed to America’s decision to declare 

war against Great Britain in June 1812.

None of these factors, however, adequately explain why President James Madison called for a war the country was ill-prepared to 

wage. Moreover, the war was quite unpopular from the start. Many 

Federalists—chiefly in the New England states—opposed an armed 

conflict with Great Britain, continued to trade with the British, and 

even met in convention to propose secession from the Union. Some 

members of the president’s own Republican Party objected to the 

war’s inevitable costs and questionable objectives, such as the conquest of Canada.

To declare war was one thing, but to prosecute it successfully was 

a different matter. Much of the story of the War of 1812 is about 

the unpreparedness of America’s Army and Navy at the conflict’s 

outset, and the enormous difficulties the new nation faced in raising 

troops, finding competent officers, and supplying its forces. Most 

of America’s military leaders were inexperienced and performed 

poorly, particularly in the first two years of war. Only gradually did 

better leaders rise to the top to command the more disciplined and 

well-trained units that America eventually fielded. But despite costly 

initial setbacks, by the time the fighting stopped American arms had 

won key victories at Chippewa, Lundy’s Lane, and New Orleans 

under excellent officers such as Winfield Scott, Jacob Brown, and 

Andrew Jackson. Although the United States achieved few of its 

political objectives in the War of 1812, its Regular Army emerged 

more professional, better led, and fit to take its place as the foundation of America’s national defenses.
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I encourage all Army leaders and soldiers to read this pamphlet 

and the others in our series of campaign pamphlets in commemoration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. We can all profit from 

greater knowledge about the beginnings of our Army: an Army forged 

in victory and defeat during what has often been called the second 

war of American independence.

RICHARD W. STEWART

Chief Historian
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Defending a New Nation

1783–1811

From the closing days of the Revolutionary War in 1783 to the 

beginning of the War of 1812, the United States Army faced one 

of its most challenging periods. During this era, American soldiers 

confronted threats from Great Britain, France, and Spain. On the 

western frontier, hostile warriors from American Indian nations 

battled U.S. Army and militia troops north of the Ohio River, as 

white settlers’ insatiable demands for land provoked conflict with 

Indian communities. The Army suppressed civil unrest, built roads, 

and conducted explorations, including the transcontinental expedition led by Army officers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The 

post-revolutionary years also saw the Army in a process of frequent 

reorganization, from the disbanding of the Continental Army at the 

end of the Revolutionary War to the establishment of Maj. Gen. 

Anthony Wayne’s Legion of the United States, followed by President 

Thomas Jefferson’s efforts at reforming the Army into a Republican 

institution. These structural changes increased during James Madison’s first presidential term, as Americans prepared for war with Great 

Britain over maritime rights, free trade, and territorial expansion in 

a conflict that became known as the War of 1812.

Building on Washington’s Legacy, 1783–1790

By early 1783, active campaigning by the British and Continental armies had ceased, and besides a small garrison of redcoats in 

New York, few enemy soldiers remained on U.S. soil. The American 

army, consisting of about seven thousand to eight thousand men, 

camped along the Hudson River at New Windsor, near Newburgh, 

New York, where General George Washington had moved them 

following the surrender of British troops at Yorktown, Virginia. 

Ill-clad, underfed, and rarely paid, the soldiers’ morale was unsurprisingly low. Word of a forthcoming peace settlement negotiated 
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at Paris had reached the United States months before American 

and British representatives signed the treaty on 3 September 1783. 

With the anticipated withdrawal of enemy forces from America, the 

Confederation Congress on 24 September 1783 ordered Washington to discharge the Continental Army, keeping only those troops 

he deemed necessary for the good of the service. After the British 

evacuated New York City in November, Washington disbanded the 

Army except for one infantry regiment and a battalion of artillery, 

six hundred men in total, to guard military property at West Point, 

New York, and Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania. 

Although most American leaders recognized the necessity for a 

postwar army, few agreed on the size and type of force best suited to 

the needs and ideals of the young nation.With the end of hostilities 

and the British evacuation of New York in November 1783, the key 

military question facing the United States was the kind of military 

establishment it required. Congress recognized that some troops were 

needed to counter Indian threats and to occupy America’s western 

forts. Adequate armed forces would also be needed to guard arsenals 

and other important sites. 

Some congressmen, notably Elbridge T. Gerry of Massachusetts, 

objected to the creation of any standing army. He and others warned 

of the dangers and costs of a permanent army and preferred to rely 

on state militias to safeguard American independence and liberty. 

Professional armies and despotism went hand in hand, they argued, 

as ambitious or corrupt rulers could use an army to amass power and 

oppress the people. Other critics pointed to the several battlefield successes of militia forces during the Revolutionary War to demonstrate 

that American liberties could be defended by citizens in arms. More 

moderate political leaders argued instead that external threats and 

domestic disorders required a competent, regular military establishment in order to survive. Among them was General Washington, who 

advised in 1783 that “a few [regular] Troops, under certain circumstances, are not only safe, but indisputably necessary.”

As this debate was unfolding, three events occurred that gave 

credence to the arguments of those who opposed a standing army. 

The first occurred at the encampment around Newburgh, where many 

Continental officers were disgruntled. Having gone without pay for 

years, they feared that if Congress did not pay them or provide for 

their annuities they would face a bleak future of poverty. They had 

agreed in 1781 to a pension of half-pay for life, but as Congress 

grappled with a shortage of funds, the prospect for receiving any 

money seemed remote.
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In December 1782, a delegation of these discontented officers 

delivered a petition to Congress in Philadelphia, demanding overdue 

pay and “a one-time lump-sum payment.” The officers warned of a 

general mutiny against civilian authority if a satisfactory resolution to 

the financial issues did not emerge. Congress considered the petition 

in January 1783, but failed to act. In March, a group of officers called 

for a meeting of the Army’s leaders, to consider threatening Congress 

with force to redress their grievances. Upon learning of the intrigues, 

Washington confronted the officers and urged them to remain loyal. 

Two weeks later, the arrival of news that a peace treaty had been 

negotiated in Paris reduced some of the tension, but the disturbing 

incident vexed many Confederation delegates in Philadelphia. 

Shortly after Washington defused the crisis at Newburgh, numerous Continental officers took a more subtle tack by forming the 

Society of the Cincinnati. Founded by General Henry Knox and 

other senior Army leaders in May 1783, the society was a fraternal 

organization, intended to preserve the bonds of shared wartime 

service and sacrifice, and to preserve the memory of the struggle for 

independence. The officer corps’ desperate financial predicament and 

its pronounced feeling of resentment against Congress also formed a 

compelling impetus for the society’s creation. Citing the sacrifices they 

had made while leading the Army to victory, the society’s members 

advocated financial relief and postwar pensions for Continental officers. Some government officials came to regard the new organization 

as a dangerous political threat to the nascent American government. 

Moreover, the organization allowed for inclusion into the society of 

the eldest male children of officers who served during the Revolutionary War, with membership to pass to the “eldest male posterity.” This 

provision appeared to many Americans as a conspiratorial threat to 

Republican principals for which the struggle for independence had 

been waged.

A final potential danger arose in June 1783, when several hundred 

unpaid Pennsylvania troops rioted in Philadelphia. They surrounded 

and threatened legislators meeting at the Pennsylvania state house, 

demanding to be paid. Although unharmed, the anxious delegates 

relocated to Princeton, New Jersey, without taking action to mollify 

the rebellious troops. The experience provided the delegates with a 

firsthand insight of the potential dangers of an irate army.

While these developments alarmed the Confederation government, Congress proceeded to study the matter of a future military 

establishment. In June 1783, a congressional committee led by 

Alexander Hamilton of New York and advised by George Washington 
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recommended reliance on a trained force of professional soldiers to 

provide for the common defense, with the state militias playing an 

auxiliary role. By this time, however, sentiments within the Confederation government seemed to be leaning away from maintaining a 

permanent army, and the recent soldier riots in Pennsylvania did little 

to recommend it. Congress rejected the plan as being too expensive 

and complex. When Congress moved to Annapolis, Maryland, in 

November, efforts to provide for military defense ceased altogether. 

On 2 June 1784, Congress directed General Knox, the senior 

officer in the Army, to disband the last remaining infantry regiment 

and artillery battalion, except for eighty soldiers to guard military 

stores at West Point and Fort Pitt. No officers above the rank of 

captain were to be retained in the service. Nevertheless, congressmen recognized that some type of military establishment had to be 

fashioned to counter Britain’s continued presence in North America 

and Indian threats against settlements in the Ohio Valley and Great 

Lakes area. Spain also appeared as a potential enemy in the South. 

Consequently, on 3 June Congress passed a measure to recruit eight 

new companies of infantry and two companies of artillery, seven 

hundred men in total, for one year’s service. Congress asked Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey to provide the new 

troops from their militias. This force was not a national establishment 

of regulars dreaded by many congressmen, nor was it solely a militia 

or state formation. Josiah Harmar of Pennsylvania, a Revolutionary 

War veteran, received the appointment to command the hybrid force, 

known as the Regiment of Infantry, and later, as the First American 

Regiment, with the rank of lieutenant colonel commandant. He 

reported to both Congress and the state of Pennsylvania, and when 

Henry Knox resigned from the service later that year, Harmar became 

the senior officer in the Army. Recruitment for the unit was slow, so 

that by the early fall, only New Jersey and Pennsylvania had provided 

their quota of men. Harmar stationed these troops in northern New 

York and in the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. Each of 

the small detachments was led by a junior officer, many of whom 

were Revolutionary War veterans.

In April 1785, when the enlistments of the First American 

Regiment’s soldiers were about to expire, Congress called for seven 

hundred recruits for three-year terms of enlistment. These new men were 

not to be detached from state militias but enlisted directly into national 

service, so that the regiment would be strictly a regular formation of 

the Confederation government. Congress directed that the regiment 

“show the flag” to the British still occupying forts in western territory 
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ceded by Britain to America in 

the Treaty of Paris, and to protect 

settlers and American peace 

negotiators from Indian attacks 

on the northwestern frontiers. The 

troops were also expected to drive 

off white squatters from land in 

Indian country, destroying their 

homes and farms in the process, as 

some of this territory was intended 

by the Confederation government 

to reward Revolutionary veterans 

and to raise much-needed revenue 

through land sales. Despite these 

objectives, the regiment never 

effectively carried out its mission 

against Indians, squatters, or 

British troops, primarily due to 

its small size.

While frontier duties occupied the First American Regiment in the years following its 

formation, a disquieting event in 

the eastern United States came 

to have a profound effect on the 

American military establishment. Just as the Newburgh intrigues and 

the Philadelphia soldiers’ riots alerted congressmen to the dangers 

of a standing army, a New England revolt led many American leaders to conclude that a permanent force of regulars was required to 

guard against violent political unrest. The uprising, known as Shays’ 

Rebellion, had a significant impact on the men who would meet in 

Philadelphia in 1787 to draft a new system of government, including 

its military institutions.

Shays’ Rebellion was an armed uprising of Massachusetts backcountry farmers over debts, burdensome taxes, a lack of circulating 

currency, and oppressive court practices during the economic depression that followed the end of the Revolutionary War. Many of the 

rebels had served in the Revolution, including one of their leaders, 

Daniel Shays. They disrupted courts, assaulted lawyers and state officials, and threatened the national arsenal at Springfield. Local militia 

companies called up to disperse the rioters were often sympathetic to 

their fellow farmers’ cause, and could not be relied upon to quell the 

Josiah Harmar,

by Raphaelle Peale

(U.S. Department of State)

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disturbances. These chaotic events alarmed conservatives in all the 

states and frustrated those who looked for a swift, effective military 

response. Lacking troops, in late October 1786, Congress asked New 

Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, 

and Virginia to raise a force of 1,340 men for three years to put down 

the Massachusetts rebels, although the announced purpose for the 

mobilization was to send more troops to the frontier to thwart Indian 

hostilities. Only two companies of artillery were raised, but before any 

of these men could reach Massachusetts, local volunteers successfully 

defended the Springfield Arsenal from an attack in February 1787. The 

rebellion ended in defeat, but it demonstrated that the Confederation 

government could not act effectively to put down internal unrest.

While Massachusetts dispersed the rebels in early 1787, recruiting 

for the new congressional force was slow, so that by April, only 550 

men had enlisted. With the rebellion quelled, Congress directed that 

the troops be dismissed, in part due to the expense of keeping them 

in the field. Only the soldiers in two artillery companies were retained 

to guard the Springfield Arsenal and West Point. In October 1787, 

Congress renewed the authorization for seven hundred men for the 

First American Regiment that had initially been made in 1785, and 

organized the troops into an infantry regiment of eight companies 

and an artillery battalion of four companies. These troops were intended to protect settlers and public land surveyors on the frontier 

from Indian attacks. At the same time, national and state political 

leaders began to reconsider not only the kind of military establishment needed, but also whether the government itself needed to be 

restructured. This movement eventually led to the meeting of the 

Constitutional Convention in May 1787. 

Just as the Confederation government had struggled in the Revolution’s wake with differing views about a standing army, so too did 

the delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. On 

this issue, the representatives were polarized along philosophical 

lines. Many who favored a new governmental structure—known 

as Federalists—argued in favor of a permanent force, denying that 

standing armies represented a threat to the public. They argued that 

an established regular force was needed to defend the country against 

a foreign invasion since militia troops could not be prepared in time 

to counter such a threat. They also pointed to the need to protect 

“against the ravages and depredations of the Indians.” 

On the other side of the debate, traditional Whig fears of standing armies, their costs, and the potential threat they posed to liberty 

were arrayed. To radical Whigs (later called Anti-Federalists), it was 
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axiomatic that standing armies were dangerous to the liberties of the 

people, typical of monarchies and not republics. Patrick Henry of 

Virginia warned that “Congress by the power of taxation, by that 

of raising an army, and by their control of the militia, have sword in 

one hand and the purse in the other. Shall we be safe without either?” 

Others noted that the power given the new national government over 

the army was at the expense of the states, which only retained their 

prerogative in appointing militia officers. Congress, in the proposed 

Constitution, would have the power to raise an army even in peacetime, and could also control the state militia organizations. Although 

such concerns were heard frequently during the debates, the convention delegates did not seriously consider rejecting provisions for 

creating and maintaining a standing army within the framework of 

the new constitution. The Constitution was ratified on 21 June 1788 

and replaced the Articles of Confederation.

Within the new constitutional system, the central government 

was responsible for raising and maintaining the Army, not the states, 

and the power to tax (previously denied to the Confederation government) meant that Congress could now do so. The Constitution 

gave the president the role of commander in chief, with the right to 

take command of the military in the field. Congress reserved for itself the power to declare war and to appropriate money for military 

spending. Army appropriations were limited to two years, so that 

the maintenance of a standing army could be reviewed—and controlled, if need be—by a watchful Congress. Congress could call out 

the states’ militias to execute federal laws, to suppress insurrections, 

and to defend the country against foreign invasions. The national 

legislature also had the power to organize, arm, and discipline the 

states’ militias, although as a compromise to federalism, the states 

retained the right to appoint officers and train the militias. 

The initial army under the Constitution hardly seemed to pose a 

serious military threat to liberty. Congress authorized a strength of 

840 men, but only 672 were actually in service, in addition to artillery 

detachments at Springfield and West Point. Harmar, a brigadier general 

since 1787, retained his command. Not until 1790 would Congress 

authorize an expansion, adding four infantry companies to the Army’s 

authorized strength, which brought it to 1,273 officers and men, with 

soldiers to serve three-year enlistments. By early the next year, the force 

actually numbered eight hundred men, most of whom garrisoned several newly constructed western forts in the Ohio River Valley.

Meanwhile, in August 1789, Congress created the Department 

of War under the executive branch to oversee the administration of 
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the nascent force. The secretary at war (soon changed to secretary 

of war) also assumed responsibility for supervising federal Indian 

affairs. Former Continental Army general Henry Knox led the new 

department, with only a handful of clerks and one messenger to assist 

with his routine duties. The administration of the Army included a 

civilian-controlled military supply system under the secretary of war, 

responsible for keeping and distributing supplies, while a board of the 

Treasury Department looked after procurement of military necessities, including uniforms and food. In 1794, Congress created the Office 

of the Purveyor of Public Supplies within the Treasury Department 

and a Superintendant of Military Stores, part of the War Department. 

Most of the procurement process was handled through a contract 

system for reasons of economy and efficiency, but this method failed 

to live up to congressional expectations or meet the soldiers’ needs. 

For its weapons, the War Department maintained several armories 

and magazines for storing and repairing arms, many of which were 

left over from the Revolutionary War. Although Congress established 

national armories at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harper’s Ferry, 

Virginia, in the mid-1790s to produce and repair weapons, the Army 

relied on foreign suppliers for most of its armaments. 

Most of the recruits who enlisted during the years following the 

American Revolution served on the frontier, in log forts built in the 

Ohio country. These were typically isolated posts, where the soldiers’ 

duties were dull and laborious. Due to the logistical difficulties the 

Army and its contractors faced, and the challenges inherent in organizing and running a new organization, soldiers were often unpaid, 

poorly supplied, and ill-fed. Discipline was rigid and punishments 

severe, especially in light of the soldiers’ frequent abuse of alcohol. 

In these conditions, morale was low and desertion rampant. Soldiers 

had a poor reputation among the general populace of America, 

particularly in places where posts were located. Many recruits were 

of foreign birth, primarily Irish, since native-born Americans were 

not usually drawn to the military’s low pay. Given the costs associated with a permanent army and the small size of the force Congress 

authorized, frontier military operations also involved militia troops. 

It was with this mixed force of regulars and militiamen that the new 

government would confront the military challenges of the early 1790s. 

Securing the Frontier

During the decades that followed the American independence, 

the new federal Army found itself confronted with an array of 
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diverse challenges. Warfare with Native Americans in the trans–

Appalachian West was the Army’s first major concern, and it 

severely tested the new nation’s ability to wage war successfully.

Challenges in the Northwest Territory

The lure of fertile lands, opportunities for land speculation, 

and the lucrative Indian trade drew thousands of Americans across 

the Appalachian Mountains after the American Revolution. Congress also had a financial interest in developing the West, both to 

reduce its wartime debt through land sales and to reward military 

veterans for their past service. Establishing a buffer between the 

eastern states and the British and Spanish in the west also had the 

benefit of securing the territory for Congress. By the mid-1780s, 

a flood of settlers had entered the area north of the Ohio River 

to claim property, including many squatters who cared little for 

government titles or the Indians they displaced. 

The Indian tribes looked on this encroachment with alarm. 

Although they had sided with Great Britain during the American 

Revolution, the Indians of the Ohio country were largely undefeated by the time of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. They naturally 

did not believe that they needed to surrender their territory to the 

new American nation—a sentiment the British openly encouraged. 

Not only did the British refuse to evacuate posts in land they had 

ceded to America in the Treaty of Paris, most notably at Detroit, 

Michilimackinac, and Niagara, but they supplied Indian warriors 

with weapons, ammunition, and supplies in order, Washington 

wrote, to “inflame the Indian mind, with a view to keep it at variance with these States, for the purpose of retarding our settlements 

to the Westward.” The situation was ripe for conflict. 

In response to settler demands and numerous reports of 

growing violence on the frontier, American authorities looked to 

the Army. Initially, the American government sought to restrain 

white settlers from occupying Indian lands, both to avoid hostilities and to permit the territory to be properly surveyed prior 

to sale. Secretary Knox prohibited the Army’s senior officer, Lt. 

Col. Josiah Harmar, from engaging in offensive operations with 

his small command, which he moved in late 1784 to Fort McIntosh, Pennsylvania, on the north bank of the Ohio River. The 

Army thus tried to maintain peace along the frontier during the 

1780s, although many military officers had little sympathy for 

the Indians. In addition to defending government surveyors as 

they marked off land in the Ohio wilderness, the Army evicted 
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hundreds of squatters from land they illegally occupied. Beginning in 1785, Harmar sent troops to remove unlawful settlers, 

tear down their cabins, and destroy their crops. These draconian 

measures, executed in hopes of avoiding a war between whites 

and Indians, did little to endear the Army to western settlers. In 

order to increase the Army’s military presence in the northwest 

and to keep an eye on Indians and settlers alike, soldiers built 

several log forts along the Ohio River and its tributaries in the 

mid-1780s. Ironically, the construction of these forts encouraged 

rather than deterred white settlement since the garrisons offered 

at least some protection from Indian attacks (Map 1). 

Tippecanoe 1811

St. Clair’s Defeat 1791

Fallen Timbers 1794

Miami Villages (Harmar’s Battle) 1790

Wabash R Ohio R

Ohio R

Maumee R

St. Marys R

St. Joseph R

Ohio R

Monongahela R

Muskingum R

Allegh eny R

L A K E

E R I E

L A K E H U R O N

L A K E

M I C H I G A N

No te : B o u n d a ri e s s h ow n a re o f 1 8 1 2 .

Fort Steuben

Fort Washington

Fort Hamilton

Fort Knox

Fort Detroit Fort Presque Isle

Fort Niagara

Fort

 Dearborn

Fort Fayette

Fort Jeerson

Fort Miamis

Limestone

Cincinnati

Louisville

Vincennes

Marietta

Pittsburgh

Gallipolis

K E N T U C K Y

V I R G I N I A

P E N N S Y L V A N I A

M I C H I G A N

T E R R I T O R Y

U P P E R

C A N A D A

I N D I A N A

T E R R I T O R Y

O H I O

I L L I N O I S T E R R I T O R Y

N E W

Y O R K

F R O N T I E R C A M PA I G N S

OLD NOR THWEST TERRITORY

1790–1812

Battle Site

0 50 100 150

Miles

Map 1
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Desirous of avoiding a full-scale war with the Indians in the 

northwest for which the Army was ill-prepared, the United States 

attempted to negotiate with native tribes in the 1780s. Government 

authorities reckoned that it was more advantageous and cheaper 

to purchase land from the Indians than to fight them. Despite 

these aims, most of these diplomatic efforts were unsuccessful. 

Attempts at peace were doomed by the American position that the 

Indians had forfeited the lands of the Ohio country by their alliance with the British during the Revolutionary War. Negotiations 

went nowhere with the Indians, primarily the Miami, Shawnee, 

and Kickapoo, who refused to sell or trade away their lands and 

declined to recognize the legitimacy of prior treaties with the 

Americans. They insisted that the boundary between Indian and 

white territory was the Ohio River, despite treaties signed at Fort 

McIntosh in 1785 and Fort Finney in 1786, where Indians unauthorized to negotiate for all tribes relinquished tens of thousands 

of acres north of the river. 

By 1786, backcountry warfare had broken out in the northwest 

between aggressive settlers and enraged Indians, especially those on 

the Wabash, Miami, and Maumee Rivers. There was much unity 

among the Indians of the Ohio country due to shared opposition 

to the encroaching Americans. Attacks on settlers and isolated 

detachments of American soldiers increased. In July 1788, for 

instance, Indians attacked a detachment of thirty troops near the 

mouth of the Wabash in a skirmish that left eight soldiers dead and 

ten wounded. That same month, a small party of soldiers preparing a treaty council site at the Falls of the Muskingum suffered 

an unexpected attack by a Chippewa war party and withdrew to 

Fort Harmar after the sharp skirmish. After significant violence 

between Indians and Kentucky militia forces, particularly in the 

Wabash River area around Fort Knox, a small contingent of 

regulars led by Maj. John F. Hamtramck occupied the old French 

settlement at Vincennes in 1787, to keep the peace and to establish 

civil authority in the region. There were, however, too few soldiers 

in Hamtramck’s force to do more than watch the escalating violence. Much of the bloodshed stemmed from periodic raids north 

of the Ohio River launched by mounted Kentucky militiamen, 

who took matters into their own hands rather than rely on the 

small national Army. 

In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance to establish a workable process for governing these unruly territories. By 

August 1789, the first president of the United States of America 
•••• 18 ••••

under the Constitution, George Washington, determined that frontier violence required the “immediate intervention of the General 

Government,” and in September Congress empowered him to call 

on state militia forces to help protect the frontier. Peace efforts 

during 1789 and 1790 by Arthur St. Clair, the first governor of 

the Northwest Territory, were unsuccessful, which led the former 

Revolutionary War general to advise Washington that a punitive 

expedition against the Indians would likely be needed. Under 

additional pressure from Harmar (since 1787, a brevet brigadier 

general), frightened settlers, land speculators, and militia authorities in Kentucky and Ohio, Secretary of War Knox ordered a foray 

against the hostile Indians on the upper Wabash in June 1790, to 

“extirpate, utterly, if possible,” the Indian “banditti.”

Harmar’s Expedition, 1790

Governor St. Clair and General Harmar met in July 1790 at 

Fort Washington on the Ohio River (present site of Cincinnati) 

to plan the campaign. This post was garrisoned by seventy-five 

soldiers, soon to be joined by almost three hundred men of the 

First American Regiment. St. Clair and Harmar decided on a twopronged advance against the Indian villages on the upper reaches 

of the Wabash and Maumee Rivers, the location of several hostile 

tribes unwilling to negotiate with American representatives. Harmar 

was to lead a march to Kekionga on the headwaters of the Maumee 

River, where over one thousand warriors were supposed to have 

gathered. Kekionga was a major fur trading post, where British 

agents supplied Indians with muskets and ammunition. Harmar 

intended to destroy the enemy’s villages, corn stocks, and Indian 

traders’ supplies, to reduce the Indians to poverty, and prevent their 

continued war-making capabilities. 

While General Harmar would lead the main thrust of the 

Army’s campaign against Kekionga, a second force led by Major 

Hamtramck would provide a diversion farther west with a simultaneous march against the Indian towns via the Wabash River. 

Hamtramck, a former Continental Army officer, set out northward 

on 30 September from Fort Knox at Vincennes with about three 

hundred troops, of which only sixty were regulars, including several 

artillerymen and a brass 3-pounder cannon. The remainder of his 

command consisted of Kentucky militiamen of poor quality and 

low morale. Upon reaching Vermillion eleven days later, Hamtramck found the Indian village there evacuated. On 14 October, 

Hamtramck returned to Vincennes due to the unwillingness of the 
•••• 19 ••••

disgruntled militia to proceed farther and to supply deficiencies. 

While Hamtramck’s diversion may have drawn hundreds of enemy 

warriors away from Harmar’s larger operation to the east, the Fort 

Knox soldiers accomplished little else during their brief foray and 

returned to their post on 26 October. 

Meanwhile, Harmar organized the main thrust of the campaign 

from Fort Washington, from which he intended to march directly 

northward to reach the Maumee towns. Given the paucity of trained 

soldiers, Congress authorized calling militia and volunteers to increase Harmar’s force. In the end, the 37-year-old general was able 

to gather approximately three hundred regulars and one thousand 

militiamen. The army also brought along two 6-pounder guns.

At Fort Washington and during the campaign, the Army struggled with the two primary challenges that characterized all frontier 

operations during the era: logistical difficulties and undisciplined 

soldiery. Due to the vast distances from eastern supply sources and 

problems with military contractors, Harmar’s forces were poorly fed, 

supplied, and equipped. The Army had difficulty procuring required 

munitions too, especially musket cartridges for the troops. Much of 

what did reach the posts on the Ohio River was of poor quality, or had 

been spoiled or damaged during water transportation to the frontier. 

A congressional report of 1792 noted “fatal mismanagements and 

neglects” in supplying Harmar’s command, “particularly as to tents, 

Fort Washington (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 20 ••••

knapsacks, camp kettles, cartridge boxes, packsaddles, etc., all of 

which were deficient in quantity and bad in quality.” While supplies 

and provisions trickled into Fort Washington during the summer, 

militiamen began to arrive in September. About eight hundred men 

came from Kentucky, with an additional three hundred from Pennsylvania. Most of these troops were inadequately armed, and many 

had little or no experience with firearms or frontier campaigning. 

A number of these recruits were too old or infirm for the rigors of 

war, and some were young boys or paid substitutes with little desire 

to fight. Harmar despaired at the untested troops with which he had 

to conduct the campaign, but he had no time to train them before 

the army set off.

The militia, led by Col. John Hardin of Kentucky, began the 

northward advance on 26 September 1790. As they proceeded, they 

cleared a military road through the wilderness for the artillery and 

wagons. The regulars left Fort Washington on 30 September, accompanied by the wagon trains, and by 3 October they joined the militia at 

Turkey Creek (near modern Xenia, Ohio). The combined force numbered 320 regulars and 1,133 militiamen. As the army moved toward 

the Maumee towns, scouts ranged on the flanks and in the van of the 

column to guard against surprise, while militia units protected the 

rear. At night when the army camped, the troops cautiously formed 

a protective square for defense, with artillery, wagons, packhorses, 

cattle, and baggage positioned in the center. Initially there was little 

sign of enemy Indians, but by 10 October when the army reached 

the Big Miami River, scouts sensed that the column was being observed. On 13 October, they approached within two days’ march of 

the Miami towns and captured an Indian warrior who informed the 

Americans that the Indians intended to burn their towns and avoid 

the approaching American army. With this intelligence, Harmar 

ordered a mounted column to strike the Indians before they could 

escape. This detachment included six hundred Kentucky militiamen 

under Colonel Hardin, supported by fifty regulars led by Capt. David 

Ziegler. These horsemen set out the next morning, many of the men 

excited to finally strike a blow at the elusive enemy. The rest of the 

army followed in their path.

The intelligence garnered from the captured Indian was correct. 

About six hundred warriors had gathered at Kekionga under the 

leadership of chiefs Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of 

the Shawnees. After deciding they could not defend their villages 

against the approaching Americans, the warriors set fire to the towns 

on 15 October, buried their supplies of corn nearby, and removed as 
•••• 21 ••••

much of their trade goods as possible. That same afternoon, Hardin’s 

mounted detachment rode into Kekionga without opposition. The 

men plundered what structures had not been burned by the Indians, 

as well as those in other nearby villages. The main army arrived on 

17 October and spent three days destroying cabins, crops, and stores. 

During this destruction, the militia became unruly, as they searched 

around the vicinity for additional caches of hidden Indian goods and 

provisions to loot. Harmar considered pushing on to other villages 

along the Wabash, but on the night of 17 October, Indians drove off 

dozens of the army’s packhorses, which placed Harmar’s command 

in danger of being short of supplies.

On 18 October, Harmar sent out a reconnaissance of three 

hundred militiamen and federal troops, “to make some discovery of 

the enemy” nearby. This detachment, commanded by Lt. Col. James 

Trotter of the Kentucky militia, planned to scout for three days, but 

soon after leaving camp, the militia soldiers killed two Indians, and 

later that day a few of Trotter’s men encountered a force of fifty 

mounted warriors. With his militia unnerved by these encounters, 

Trotter returned to the main army camp with his detachment that 

day. His early return and his failure to secure much information 

about the Indians’ whereabouts angered and annoyed both Hardin 

and Harmar. Hardin asked to lead a second reconnaissance himself 

the next day, to which Harmar assented.

Hardin set out with one hundred eighty militiamen early on 

the morning of 19 October, heading northwest, accompanied by 

thirty regulars under Capt. John Armstrong, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. The militia was unenthusiastic about scouring the 

woods for the enemy, since the column expected to make contact 

with Indian warriors. Dozens of Hardin’s men dropped out of the 

column to return to camp. As the Kentuckians found signs along 

the trail of what looked to be Indians in full retreat, Hardin ordered 

a rapid pursuit. In their haste, the militia became strung out along 

the trail and disorganized. Hardin and part of his force, including 

Armstrong’s regulars, arrived at an open meadow near an Indian 

town on the Eel River. Once most of the militia was in the open, 

Indians fired from a half-moon formation in the surrounding woods, 

probably led by Little Turtle of the Miami. “When our troops were 

completely between the lines of the enemy they commenced the 

fire with their usual yells,” recorded a Kentuckian. Quickly routed, 

the militia ran in panic through the line of Captain Armstrong’s 

regulars. Many Kentuckians threw down their loaded arms in their 

haste to escape, while the regulars stood and returned fire. After 
•••• 22 ••••

fierce fighting, Armstrong and another officer fled into a nearby 

swamp. “They fought and died hard,” Armstrong later wrote of his 

doomed soldiers. Some militia did form a defensive line among the 

trees on the trail back to Harmar’s encampment, which managed to 

stop the pursuing Indians. Meanwhile, Hardin and what remained 

of his terrified militia force reached Harmar’s new camp near the 

Indian town of Chillicothe after sunset. One hundred militiamen 

were missing, along with the regulars, most of whom who had died 

in the clearing.

After the defeated troops made it back to camp, the rest of the 

militia became demoralized, and their officers feared a mutiny. Having 

achieved his primary objective, Harmar decided to return with his 

command back to Fort Washington. On 20 October, his men razed 

Chillicothe and destroyed all the food his army could not consume 

or transport on their return march to the Ohio River. In order to 

restore discipline in his command, the general ordered that any signs 

of desertion, looting, or improper conduct on the trek back be dealt 

with severely.

While General Harmar made ready to return to Fort Washington 

with his command, Colonel Hardin wished for another opportunity 

to attack the Indians nearby, despite the setback of the nineteenth. 

Army scouts reported that over a hundred Indians had reoccupied 

several of the ruined villages of Kekionga to look for buried provisions. At the suggestion of Hardin, the general agreed to send a 

detachment back to the village and surprise these warriors, whom he 

assumed expected no further strikes from the Americans. A sudden 

assault on the Indians, Harmar reasoned, might also check attacks 

on his column as it marched back to the Ohio River. The expedition, 

the command of which Harmar gave to an Army regular, Maj. John 

P. Wyllys, included sixty soldiers and about three hundred picked 

militiamen under Hardin. Wyllys and the militia officers planned 

to surround the Indians, and divided into three groups to affect the 

complicated scheme, to commence on the morning of 22 October. 

Before the American troops could execute the plan, however, the Indians became aware of their presence by careless musket fire among 

the militia. A wild, confusing fight ensued, in which the regulars and 

the militia were unable to support each other for much of the battle. 

Indians attacked the regulars and some mounted troops as the soldiers 

crossed the shallow Maumee River in the morning. After a sharp fight 

there and at a second ford on the St. Joseph River, the Indians fled, 

although “the savages fought desperately,” Harmar later reported. 

While the Indians suffered significant casualties during the battle, 
•••• 23 ••••

the American force had also been mauled, especially the regulars, 

who suffered approximately 80 percent casualties, including Major 

Wyllys, who was killed. The panic-stricken survivors, primarily militia, 

returned to Harmar’s camp in disorder by the afternoon, having been 

“terribly cut up.” Survivors reported that the fighting was “obstinate 

and many fell on both sides,” including sixty-eight of the militia who 

were killed and another twenty-eight wounded. Word of the costly 

fighting alarmed the men back in Harmar’s main camp, where the 

anxious troops continued to make preparations to leave. 

Without attempting to bury the dead back at Kekionga, 

Harmar marched his dispirited men to Fort Washington, which 

they reached on 3 November, their provisions nearly exhausted. 

Nevertheless, General Harmar considered the campaign to have 

been a success, due to the destruction of the Indian villages. “Our 

loss was heavy,” Harmar reported to Henry Knox, “but the head 

of iniquity were broken up.” He could also point to the fact that 

Indians never attacked or surprised his main column, nor had it 

suffered a catastrophic defeat. Others took a dimmer view of the 

campaign. Those on the frontier, in particular, concluded that the 

expedition had been a disaster. The regulars had lost 75 men killed 

out of 320 who began the march, and militia losses had been high 

as well. Others claimed that Harmar had risked too much in sending the militia on independent excursions, and that Harmar had 

never left the camp or faced enemy fire directly. Accusations flew 

between regulars and militia, and Harmar was accused of being a 

drunk. President Washington deplored the “disgraceful termination” to the campaign, which he called an “expence without honor 

or profit.” Knox too called it “unsuccessful,” and recommended 

that Harmar ask for a court of inquiry to clear his name in the face 

of such harsh criticism. Harmar complied, and a court of inquiry 

consequently convened in September 1791, at Fort Washington. The 

court exonerated Harmar, but he failed to retain the confidence of 

Washington or Knox. He resigned from the Army in January 1792.

St. Clair’s Defeat, 1791

The inconclusive nature of Harmar’s 1790 autumn campaign all 

but guaranteed that a subsequent military effort to defeat the Indians 

in the Northwest Territory would be launched. In the months after 

Harmar’s return to the Ohio River, Indian attacks on settlers and 

military outposts continued. In March 1791, the Washington administration appointed Arthur St. Clair, then serving as the governor 

of the Northwest Territory, to command the Army on the frontier, 
•••• 24 ••••

with the rank of major general, 

making him the Army’s senior 

officer. Knox ordered St. Clair, 

an experienced veteran of both 

the French and Indian War and 

the Revolutionary War, to lead 

a force to the Kekionga villages 

and establish “a strong post and 

garrison” there, “for the purpose 

of awing and curbing the Indians 

in that quarter.” A new fort would 

also disrupt British trade with the 

tribes as well. Until the campaign 

could be commenced, the United 

States tried a combination of 

diplomatic overtures and militia 

forays against the tribes, none of 

which were successful. 

Despite the intentions of 

President Washington and Secretary Knox to muster a powerful 

army of regulars supplemented 

by short-term recruits and militia 

forces, St. Clair soon discovered 

that the army was “ill prepared in 

every respect to take the field.” In 

the spring of 1791, St. Clair had 

gathered 299 regulars at Fort Washington, which left few soldiers to 

guard the other forts in the region. Even the men he had present were 

hastily recruited, with little training, discipline, or pay. In order to 

strengthen the frontier army, Congress authorized Secretary Knox to 

raise a second regiment of regulars to be commanded by Lt. Col. John 

Doughty, who had been on continuous military duty since 1775. An 

additional 2,000 six-month levies were to be raised for the campaign 

under federally appointed officers, all of whom would be discharged 

upon the conclusion of St. Clair’s operations. The new general also 

had the authority to call out the militia of Virginia and Pennsylvania 

for federal service should he find it necessary for the success of his 

endeavors. By the time the campaign began in September 1791, St. 

Clair had approximately twenty-four hundred men, of which about 

eleven hundred were Kentucky militiamen. Most of the troops were 

on foot, as the general regarded mounted troops to be too expensive.

Arthur St. Clair,

by Charles Willson Peale,

(Independence National 

Historical Park, 

Philadelphia)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 25 ••••

St. Clair encountered logistical difficulties like those faced by 

Harmar during the previous year. The distances involved in getting 

supplies to the theater and the inefficiencies of the Army’s contract 

system created shortages of food, ammunition, muskets, camp equipage, and other necessities. Men in the ranks began to desert as 

discontent grew, and drunkenness among the recruits was a significant 

problem. Knox and Washington put enormous pressure on St. Clair 

to commence his movement, but “the means were inadequate,” as 

St. Clair would later explain. Nevertheless, the commanding general 

appeared to be optimistic of success and began his move northward 

on 17 September.

Cutting a road through the wilderness, the army reached the Miami 

River, where St. Clair built Fort Hamilton as a depot for the expedition 

and as protection for his lines of communications. After two weeks, 

the soldiers set out again, and ten days later St. Clair ordered the construction of a second stockade, Fort Jefferson, forty-five miles north of 

Fort Hamilton. By this time, the army was only thirty miles from the 

Indian villages, but with worsening weather, scanty food, and no pay, 

men continued to disappear from the ranks. On the last day of October, 

several dozen disgruntled Kentucky militiamen left the army in a body, 

with the claim that on their way to the Ohio River, they would pillage 

the army’s supply wagons coming from Fort Hamilton. In response, 

St. Clair ordered three hundred regulars of the 1st Infantry regiment 

to march south along the road to apprehend them and to ensure the 

safety of the supply convoy. This decision left the army deep in hostile 

country with few experienced soldiers, since the 2d Infantry regiment 

of federal troops was largely made up of recent recruits, “a great part 

of which had never been in the woods in their lives, and many had 

never fired a gun,” St. Clair noted.

By 3 November, the reduced column reached the Wabash River, 

where signs of Indians became more numerous, and stragglers were 

occasionally killed. That night, the weary main body camped on 

the eastern bluff of the Wabash River, while most of the Kentucky 

militia camped on a wide plain on the western bank, three hundred 

yards ahead of St. Clair’s main force. Although alerted several times 

to the presence of the enemy nearby, St. Clair and his officers did 

not order the construction of any defenses, other than to have the 

army camp in a rectangular formation with the supply wagons and 

artillery inside it for protection. Sporadic firing by sentinels and reports of enemy scouts lurking about did not seem to alarm St. Clair 

and his lieutenants. Moreover, few security patrols operated around 

the army’s perimeter to discern the location and strength of nearby 
•••• 26 ••••

Indian forces, which consisted of over one thousand warriors led by 

Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis.

Just before sunrise, shortly after the troops had been dismissed 

from their morning formations in preparation for continuing the army’s 

movement, the militia on the west bank of the Wabash received a powerful attack from front and rear. Only a few of the Kentuckians fired 

their weapons before the bulk of them broke in “ignominious flight” 

toward St. Clair’s main camp. The Indians attacked in a crescent formation, with the main part of their assault falling upon the left front 

of the American camp, once the militia took flight. Alerted by the 

shouts of the Indians in the forest, the American artillery opened fire 

on the attacking natives, but with little effect. The main camp on the 

east bank of the river quickly came under attack as well, resulting in 

great confusion and panic within St. Clair’s ranks as enemy warriors 

surrounded them. Several units charged the Indians with their bayonets, 

including some regulars of the 2d Infantry, while others maintained 

enough order to fire volleys at their attackers. The fight around the 

artillery was desperate, as the Indians rushed up “to the very Mouths 

of our Cannon.” As Lt. Col. William Darke of the Kentucky militia 

reported, “the artilery Men . . . [were] all Killd and Lying in heaps about 

the peases.” Losses among the officers were particularly high, including the commander of the army’s six-month men, Maj. Gen. Richard 

Butler, who, after receiving two bullet wounds, was tomahawked in the 

head and scalped while being treated by a surgeon.

After capturing the cannon, “the Indians got into our camp,” a 

soldier noted, “and Scalped I supose a hundred men or more.” Now 

convinced that the army’s position was untenable, St. Clair ordered 

a retreat at about 0900. His command had almost been annihilated. 

A few officers managed to form a body of troops, break through the 

enemy encirclement, and gain the road. They began a retreat to Fort 

Jefferson, almost thirty miles away, while those wounded and cut off 

from the retiring column were left to a fate of certain death. St. Clair 

reported that the retreat was “in fact, a flight.” The men threw away all 

that encumbered their precipitous withdrawal, including their muskets, 

and “the whole Army Ran together like a mob at a fair.” “The Indians 

. . . tomahawked all that came within their reach,” wrote one soldier. 

Most survivors reached Fort Jefferson on the evening of 4 November, 

where they met the 1st Infantry. Due to overcrowding and lack of supplies at the small post, St. Clair decided to keep his column of survivors 

moving until they arrived at Fort Hamilton on the eighth.

The three-hour debacle on the Wabash was the worst military 

disaster ever suffered by American arms against a Native American 
•••• 27 ••••

enemy. About 55 percent of St. Clair’s troops were casualties, with 

the dead and missing numbering 630 out of 1,400 men engaged. The 

2d Infantry regiment lost three-quarters of its strength, and of the 

army’s 124 officers involved in the 4 November battle, 69 were killed, 

wounded, or missing. Additionally, the expedition lost all of its artillery and most of its baggage, arms, and equipment in its headlong 

flight from the battleground. The Indians lost only thirty-five men 

at the battle. As a result of St. Clair’s defeat, the American frontier 

became further exposed to Indian attacks, with the Army largely unable to prevent the depredations. St. Clair resigned his military commission in April 1792, although he continued to serve as governor of 

the Northwest Territory. A congressional inquiry in 1792 exonerated 

him for the expedition’s failure.

The Legion of the United States and Fallen Timbers

News of the Wabash disaster reached President Washington 

and Congress in Philadelphia in December. Although these reports 

produced much consternation and political wrangling within the U.S. 

government, President Washington and Secretary Knox were able to 

put together a comprehensive strategy of peace feelers and military 

preparations beginning in early 1792. Negotiations with the Indians 

over the next few years proved unsuccessful, and Congress showed 

itself in no mood to make concessions. Additionally, the influence of 

Indian militants made compromise all but impossible on the Native 

American side. Meanwhile the federal government prepared a third 

military campaign north of the Ohio River.

The combined experience of Harmar and St. Clair’s campaigns led 

to a reorganization of the Army in 1792, in which the U.S. government 

recognized both that it needed more troops and that the militia was 

unreliable. With the advice of Washington, Knox, and Revolutionary 

War veteran Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Congress created 

the Legion of the United States, with an authorized strength of 5,190 

men, to be organized into four sublegions. Each sublegion included a 

troop of dragoons, a company of artillery, two battalions of infantry, 

and one battalion of riflemen. These sublegions would be well suited for 

wilderness warfare against the Indians and could fight independently of 

each other. The costs projected for the maintenance of this force was over 

$1 million, a huge sum for the day. To command this new Army, Congress (at Washington’s recommendation) appointed Maj. Gen. Anthony 

Wayne, a Revolutionary War hero known for his courage, audacity, and 

stern discipline. At the same time, Congress passed the first national law 

to regulate the militia.
•••• 28 ••••

General Wayne refused to be 

rushed into a campaign before his 

forces were prepared. He trained 

his men thoroughly, instituted 

rigorous discipline, and tried to 

build morale by his attention to 

the soldiers’ clothing, rations, pay, 

and esprit de corps. In early 1793, 

Wayne moved his men to Fort 

Washington from their camps at 

Legionville, near Pittsburgh. For 

most of the year, he continued to 

train his troops, gather supplies, 

and begin construction of additional forts and roads north of 

Fort Washington as he waited the 

outcome of ongoing diplomatic 

efforts with the Indians. Once diplomacy failed, Wayne was free to 

begin his campaign to extinguish 

the threat from hostile tribes 

along the Maumee River and its 

tributaries. Although he would 

experience logistical problems and 

difficulties associated with the militia as had Harmar and St. Clair, 

Wayne’s command was in better shape than those of his predecessors. 

On 7 October 1793, Wayne led his regulars and militia forces 

northward to Fort Hamilton, and after a brief stay there, on to Fort 

Jefferson. During the march, the American army sent out numerous 

scouts and guards to prevent a surprise attack by Indians, but they 

encountered few enemy warriors along the way. By this time, Wayne 

began to face supply shortages and militia discontent, and hundreds 

of the Kentuckians deserted en mass. At the end of the month, Wayne 

decided to winter near Fort Jefferson and dismissed all the remaining 

militia until spring, in part to save from having to clothe and feed 

them. While encamped, the army constructed a permanent stockade 

called Fort Greenville. In March 1794, a small detachment of legionnaires completed a fort on the site of St. Clair’s defeat, which Wayne 

named Fort Recovery, to signal that the area was no longer dominated 

by Indian forces. Wayne planned to proceed farther northward to the 

Indian towns on the Maumee, where the British were providing native warriors with arms and ammunition from nearby Fort Miamis. 

Anthony Wayne,

by Peter Frederick Rothermel 

(Philadelphia History 

Museum)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 29 ••••

The Legion moved out of Fort Greenville on 28 July 1794, with 

2,169 men, accompanied by about 1,500 mounted Kentucky volunteers 

and over 100 Chickasaw and Choctaw scouts. The column advanced to 

the northeast after passing Fort Recovery, with scouts on all sides and 

the Kentuckians in the rear to guard communications. Determined to 

avoid St. Clair’s mistakes, the army fortified its campsites each evening 

and sent out strong patrols to detect enemy parties. On 1 August, the 

soldiers reached a major ford of the St. Marys River and halted briefly 

to erect two blockhouses surrounded by a stockade, which they named 

Fort Adams. From there, Wayne decided not to descend the St. Marys 

to reach the Maumee (which Harmar had done in 1790), but instead 

to follow the Auglaize River directly north to reach the Maumee at 

Grand Glaize, an Indian town Wayne deemed “the Grand Emporium 

of the hostile Indians of the West,” which the Americans reached on 

8 August. This unanticipated movement confused the Indians and 

the British, and placed Wayne’s forces between them. Here his troops 

built Fort Defiance, a major post with four blockhouses, to guard the 

army’s rear as it marched down the Maumee toward Fort Miamis. After a week of gathering food and supplies nearby, the army proceeded 

eastward on the Maumee’s northern side, and on the eighteenth, began 

building a primitive stockade called Fort Deposit, where the troops left 

all excess baggage and supplies with a small guard prior to their final 

march toward Fort Miamis.

While Wayne’s command marched from Fort Greenville to the 

Maumee, the Indians had collected a sizable force to contest the army’s 

further progress. Approximately fifteen hundred Mingo, Delaware, 

Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Chippewa Indians under the 

leadership of Blue Jacket and Little Turtle waited upstream from Fort 

Miamis for Wayne to advance, with the intention of ambushing the 

army along the river. On 20 August, many of the warriors took positions in an arc from the river through a section of forest blown down 

by a tornado years before, known as Fallen Timbers. Within the felled 

trees they met Wayne’s advancing army. Since the Indian leaders were 

not expecting Wayne’s attack that morning, only about five hundred 

warriors were in position when the battle commenced. An initial blast 

of Indian gunfire routed many of the Kentuckians at the head of the 

column, and seeing their early success, the warriors unwisely left the 

protection of the tangled forest and pursued the fleeing militia. Wayne 

brought up his regular infantry and ordered a bayonet charge against 

the Indian center after firing a well-directed volley into the swarming 

warriors. The troops performed “with spirit and promptitude,” and 

drove the Indians from the protection of the timber. At the same 
•••• 30 ••••

time, mounted Kentuckians under Brig. Gen. Robert Todd attacked 

the Indian right flank but could not cut off the warriors now fleeing 

that side of the field. The Legion’s cavalry on the army’s right flank 

made better progress against the enemy warriors in the open ground 

along the river, and put them to flight. Soon, all the warriors began 

streaming north for the protection of the British fort. The hour-long 

engagement produced relatively light casualties on both sides, although 

losses among the Indian leadership were particularly high. More importantly, the defeat ended the Indians’ cohesiveness and will to continue 

the war, and when the British at Fort Miamis refused to come to their 

aid as they fled the battleground, the Indians recognized that they no 

longer had an ally. The Legion proceeded to destroy the nearby crops 

and Indian towns with impunity.

The army returned to Fort Defiance a few days after the battle. 

The troops continued to destroy Indian crops and towns along their 

way while enduring sporadic attacks. In mid-September, Wayne 

moved to the Miami villages at the head of the Maumee and St. 

Marys Rivers. Here the troops constructed Fort Wayne, in the heart 

of hostile country, left it garrisoned by one sublegion, and marched 

The Road to Fallen Timbers, by H. Charles McBarron Jr. (U.S. 

Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 31 ••••

for Fort Greenville, where the army arrived on 2 November. At this 

post in August 1795, a coalition of Indian tribes met with General 

Wayne “to put an end to a destructive war, to settle all controversies, 

and to restore harmony and a friendly intercourse between the said 

United States, and Indian tribes.” Having endured the devastation of 

the Maumee Valley after Fallen Timbers, the tribes could no longer 

wage war, or even survive. Instead, they agreed to a treaty in which 

they gave up land that would be admitted to the Union in 1803 as 

the state of Ohio, along with sixteen other strategic tracts in the 

Northwest. After five years of bloody war, the Indian conflict in the 

Northwest was effectively over.

The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

Securing the Northwest Territories was the bloodiest, but not 

the only challenge confronting the young United States government 

in the 1790s. Besides the wilderness campaigns north of the Ohio 

River, the Washington administration faced a large-scale domestic 

protest movement in the backcountry of Pennsylvania, Maryland, 

Ohio, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The movement stemmed from opposition to an excise tax on liquor and stills enacted by Congress in 

1791. The frontier “rebellion” reached its peak in 1794, principally 

in the counties of western Pennsylvania, where protests and violence 

against tax collectors received widespread support. It became clear to 

Washington and his principal adviser in this matter, Treasury Secretary 

Alexander Hamilton, that only a federal military response could put 

down the unrest, enforce the tax laws, and demonstrate the authority 

of the new national government. The use of federal troops, however, 

was problematic in that the state militias had the responsibility to suppress rebellions. Moreover, most of the Army’s regulars were serving 

in Wayne’s campaign in the Northwest, and therefore unavailable. 

More importantly, Washington was reluctant to use the Army against 

rebellious civilians, even those under arms. “The employing of regular 

troops,” the president wrote, must “be avoided if it be possible to effect 

order without their aid; otherwise there would be a cry at once, ‘the Cat 

is let out; we now see for what purpose an Army was raised.’” Instead, 

the federal government resorted to the mobilization of state militias 

to suppress the uprising and “to cause the laws to be executed.” Knox 

called on Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland to provide 

a total of 15,450 militiamen, a huge number of men considering the 

size of the Regular Army at the time and the disorganized nature of 

the rioters. After marching to the Pittsburgh area, this force quieted 
•••• 32 ••••

the turmoil with little bloodshed. President Washington took personal 

command of the troops and marched with them as far as western 

Maryland. Although some of Washington’s advisers suggested the use 

of a contingent of regulars on the expedition, only militia soldiers saw 

active service during the campaign.

Institutional Changes to Meet New

Challenges, 1795–1800

The government’s success against Ohio Indians and backcountry malcontents resolved some of the new nation’s vulnerabilities, but others remained to be addressed. During the last five 

years of the eighteenth century, the Washington administration 

strove to meet challenges posed by an old foe—Great Britain—

and a new one, France. In so doing, it had to wrestle with how 

best to provide for the common defense, always a contentious 

matter given the economic, political, and ideological ramifications of this question.

Building Forts and Disbanding the Legion

General Wayne’s triumph at Fallen Timbers may have eclipsed 

Britain’s influence over the American Northwest, but U.S. leaders 

understood that the British Royal Navy—the premier nautical power 

of the age—was more than capable of harming American ports and 

maritime commerce should the two nations ever come to blows. The 

deployment of almost all the Army’s soldiers on the western frontier 

made it obvious that additional troops would be needed for the defense of the country’s numerous coastal and riverine cities. In 1794, 

Congress began a coastal defense program by starting the construction of twenty-four forts, and adding over seven hundred soldiers 

to the Army’s Corps of Artillerists and Engineers to garrison them. 

Soldiers manned forts from Portland, Maine, to Savannah, Georgia, 

typically in companies of seventeen or twenty-four privates, led by 

a captain or lieutenant and several noncommissioned officers. Additionally, the following year Congress authorized the recruitment 

of the Legion of the United States, still stationed on the frontier, to 

its full authorized strength. 

By August 1795, however, the threat of war with Great Britain 

had declined precipitously. General Wayne concluded the Treaty of 

Greenville with the hostile northwestern Indian confederation that 

month, while Congress ratified a treaty “of amity, commerce, and 

navigation” with Great Britain, negotiated by Chief Justice John 
•••• 33 ••••

Jay, that settled many disputes 

remaining from the Revolutionary 

War. Although these two treaties 

seemed to promise peace for 

the new nation, Federalists still 

sought to keep the Army at its 

present size, since dozens of 

western posts soon to be evacuated 

by British forces in accordance 

with the new treaty required 

adequate garrisons. Moreover, 

the possibility of renewed Indian 

hostilities could not be ignored, 

especially in the Southwest. The 

Republicans in Congress viewed 

the military question differently, 

and a heated political battle 

ensued between the two factions 

over the size, composition, and 

anticipated costs of the force. 

Most Republicans saw little 

need to spend money on a large 

military establishment when war 

seemed unlikely. They objected to the War Department’s budget, which 

amounted to almost 40 percent of all government expenditures by 

the mid-1790s. Matching their concern over cost was their traditional 

antipathy for standing armies, which they feared could become 

instruments of oppression in the hands of their political opponents. 

Although both General Wayne and Secretary of War James 

McHenry opposed any reduction of the force, in early 1796 after 

much legislative wrangling, Congress reduced and recast the Legion 

as the United States Army. Since cessation of hostilities with the 

Indians meant a change in the Army’s role from an active campaign 

force to one better suited to border defense, each sublegion reverted 

to becoming a traditional infantry regiment along the lines of the 

Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The reorganized 

Army had a new authorized strength of 3,359 officers and men, 

grouped in four regiments of infantry, two companies of cavalry, 

and in the existing Corps of Artillerists and Engineers. In March 

1797, Congress again revised the Army’s structure by stipulating 

that its commander, at the time James Wilkinson, would rank as a 

brigadier general, rather than a major general, as Wayne had been. 

James McHenry,

by H. Pollock

(U.S. Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 34 ••••

In addition to the Army’s top 

officer, Congress authorized a 

staff consisting of a quartermaster general, paymaster general, 

judge advocate, brigade major, 

and brigade inspector, although 

the duties and responsibilities of 

the two brigade-level positions 

were not well defined. 

By 1797, many of the Army’s 

troops were located on the southwestern frontier, while other 

units remained posted in the old 

Northwest, particularly at Detroit 

and along the Canadian border. 

Most units were understrength, 

and many soldiers suffered from 

illness, poor nutrition, and lack 

of proper medical treatment. The 

Army’s inadequate supply system 

contributed to the troops’ low 

morale and ill health, and the men 

received their meager pay infrequently. These chronic logistical 

problems were never adequately 

surmounted.

Mobilization for Quasi-War

Although the United States preferred to stay out of the escalating 

conflict between the traditional monarchies of Europe and the revolutionary, anti-monarchist government that gained control of France in 

the late 1780s and early 1790s, the nation found such a course difficult 

to navigate. By 1793, revolutionary France and monarchist Britain were 

at war with each other, but united in their antipathy toward American 

neutrality. After Congress ratified the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, 

and Navigation, more commonly known as Jay’s Treaty, in 1795, an 

agreement that settled border and trade issues with Great Britain, 

diplomatic tensions with America’s former enemy seemed to ease. The 

French Republic, however, interpreted the treaty as favorable to Britain 

and thus as a hostile act by the United States. Consequently, France 

became more bellicose, and incidents at sea between American commercial vessels and French warships grew more common. Moreover, 

James Wilkinson,

by Charles Willson Peale

(Independence National 

Historical Park, 

Philadelphia) •••••••••••••••
•••• 35 ••••

French agents fomented Indian hostilities on the southwestern frontier 

and began meddling in American domestic politics. 

The growing antagonism with France, dubbed the Quasi-War, 

was aggravated by what came to be known as the XYZ Affair, in 

which French officials refused to receive American diplomats sent to 

Paris in 1797 by Washington’s successor as president, John Adams, 

unless the ambassadors offered the officials bribes. Although he 

did not appeal to Congress for a declaration of war, Adams called 

for the provision of adequate resources for “the protection of our 

seafaring and commercial citizens; for the defense of any exposed 

portions of our territory; for replenishing our arsenals, establishing 

foundries, and military manufactures; and to provide . . . efficient 

revenue” for military preparedness. 

In June 1797, Congress responded to the war scare by appropriating additional funds for the construction of harbor forts. Since these 

installations would have to be garrisoned by soldiers, the legislature 

also turned its attention to the state of the Army. At the time, most of 

the troops remained scattered across the frontier, and in a poor state 

of readiness. Spread out in numerous small, isolated detachments, 

the Army was difficult to keep in proper order and discipline since 

it acted for the most part as a constabulary, rather than as a military force. Given the deplorable condition of the troops, Alexander 

Hamilton and other Federalists of a nationalist bent drafted a plan 

that called for the allocation of $1.1 million in funds and a force of 

twenty thousand regulars along with a provisional army of thirty 

thousand men. This was an enormous number of soldiers, and if 

ratified, would dwarf the size of the nation’s previous armies, which 

had rarely numbered over four thousand soldiers. 

Congress did not adopt the Hamiltonian plan, but it did enact a 

number of provisions to put the nation on a war footing. Most of these 

laws exceeded what President Adams, himself a Federalist, thought 

necessary, and were opposed by mistrustful Republicans. In April 

1798, an act passed for the raising of a new Regular Army regiment 

of artillery and engineers, to augment the Army’s authorized strength 

of 3,870 men and 289 officers. The next month, Congress authorized 

$250,000 for additional fortification construction, $800,000 for arms 

and artillery procurement, and a three-year Provisional Army of ten 

thousand men, to be led by a lieutenant general and mobilized only 

in the event Congress declared war, if the country were invaded, or 

was in “imminent danger” of being attacked. In July, Congress increased the strength of the existing four regular infantry regiments, 

and added twelve new foot regiments and six troops of light dragoons, 
•••• 36 ••••

dubbed an Additional Army or New Army, to serve for the duration 

of the crisis with France. In a break with tradition, this act created 

what was intended to be a strong federal force. The law dictated that 

officers’ commissions come from the president, not from the states, 

and eliminated short-term enlistments, which had limited the Army’s 

effectiveness since the early days of the Revolutionary War.

Largely due to the encouragement of Federalists who sought to 

frighten their political enemies, Congress authorized the president 

in March 1799 to raise thirty thousand more troops if war were 

declared or invasion seemed likely. Called the Eventual Army, this 

force was to be organized in twenty-four new infantry regiments, 

a regiment and a battalion of rifleman, three regiments of cavalry, 

and a battalion of engineers and artillerists. With enlistments not 

to exceed three years, the foot regiments were to consist of 1,026 

men, 29 officers, and 10 cadets, while the artillery regiments would 

be slightly larger. The president could also accept into service a 

Provisional Army of seventy-five thousand men from the states, 

although once again, the officer commissions would come from 

federal authority, not from the states. These troops, however, could 

not be made to serve outside the states in which they enlisted, a 

provision that would have limited their use in the event of war and 

made them little different from militia. 

President Adams appointed George Washington to command 

the expanded Army, at the authorized rank of lieutenant general. 

Charles C. Pinckney and Alexander Hamilton received commissions 

as major generals, with Hamilton to serve as the Army’s inspector 

general and second in command and field commander. In this role, 

Hamilton would oversee the mobilization and organization of the new 

Army instead of Washington, who remained at Mount Vernon, willing to serve only if the Army actually took the field. As it turned out, 

this new host never materialized. Despite the legislation of 1798 and 

1799 to build a large Army, President Adams preferred to devote the 

country’s military resources to strengthening the Navy, and paid little 

attention to the Army. Adams was wary of Hamilton’s efforts to build 

up the Army when England posed little threat, and a French invasion 

was unlikely, given the ongoing European war. Adams suspected that 

Hamilton sought to use the Army for his own aggrandizement and 

to cow the Republican Party in its opposition to Federalist political 

objectives. Indeed, Hamilton made the regular force a politicized, 

Federalist institution by denying commissions to most Republicans. 

Notwithstanding the war fever so prevalent within the ranks of 

his own party, Adams restarted negotiations with France in February 
•••• 37 ••••

1799, hoping to preclude a full-scale conflict. The French were equally 

desirous to avert hostilities with the United States. As tensions eased, 

the effort to expand the Army quickly dissipated. Few enlistees joined 

the new regiments, and in February 1800, Congress suspended further 

enlistments. Three months later, President Adams ordered all the emergency soldiers to demobilize by June 15, with each discharged soldier 

to draw three months’ pay and funds for his return home. 

By the summer of 1800, the Regular Army was left with 3,429 men, 

serving on the western frontier and along the Atlantic seaboard in various posts and garrisons. On paper the force consisted of two regiments 

of artillerists and engineers, two troops of dragoons, and four infantry 

regiments, but the organizations rarely served together and were often 

below full strength. Congress repealed most of the military laws it had 

enacted over the prior two years. When Hamilton resigned his commission in June, General Wilkinson once again became the Army’s senior 

officer, a position he was to hold until January 1812. In the fall of 1800, 

American diplomats signed a treaty with France, in which the latter 

recognized the neutrality of American ships and agreed to cease seizing 

commercial vessels engaged in legitimate trade. The Quasi-War was over.

The Army of the Early Jefferson

Administration, 1801–1805

The turn of the century saw not only the end of the undeclared war 

with France, but also the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency. 

This period also marked a change in the dominant national political 

party, as Jefferson’s Republicans took over power from the Federalists in 

both houses of Congress. The transition of chief executives inaugurated 

many changes in the country’s political scene, including military affairs.

Reorganizing the Army

Jefferson’s views on the proper role of a standing army in the American political system have often been mischaracterized by historians. He 

was philosophically opposed to a standing army in peacetime on the 

grounds that it was expensive to maintain and was dangerous to individual liberties. Jefferson did, however, recognize that some military force 

was necessary to protect the young republic from external threats. He 

also saw the need to train engineers and artillerists, to avoid a reliance 

on foreign-born and foreign-educated officers. Jefferson did not seek 

to dismantle the Regular Army, but expected to use state militias as a 

first line of defense. He regarded America’s armed forces as “defensive,” 

and sought to avoid entanglements in foreign disputes, particularly with 
•••• 38 ••••

France, England, and Spain, all of 

which he regarded as prospective 

threats to American security. Thus, 

Jefferson’s opposition to a large 

standing army in time of peace 

was based on pragmatic utility 

about expenses as much as it was 

on ideological fervor. 

Henry Dearborn, secretary of 

war during both of Jefferson’s presidential terms, shared the president’s 

views on the military establishment 

and was instrumental in bringing 

about the changes Jefferson desired. 

A Revolutionary War veteran and 

former congressman, Dearborn 

favored a small, well-trained force 

of regulars to defend against enemy 

invasion and for frontier duty, with 

the militia maintaining internal 

order as needed. Jefferson relied 

on Dearborn for advice on military 

matters nearly to the exclusion of all 

others, including the Army’s senior 

officer, General Wilkinson.

By the time Jefferson assumed office, war between England and 

France had cooled, while America’s diplomatic relations with these two 

nations had improved. Without a direct threat looming, Congress could 

reduce America’s military establishment in the interest of economy. The 

president and his fellow Republicans also hoped to remodel the Army 

to ensure its loyalty, make certain it would not be a threat to the new 

regime, and embrace Republican principals. At the time Jefferson took 

office, the Army’s officer corps was a Federalist stronghold. Jefferson 

feared that the politicized Army would form a determined opposition 

to his policies, and indeed most of the officers were hostile to the new 

administration. 

Beginning in 1802, Republicans used the annual appropriations 

process to tailor the armed forces to more limited defensive roles, 

reducing military spending by about one-third. Congress’ reorganization of the Army in 1802 called for significant cuts in the authorized 

strength of the armed forces. Congress also cut Army staff positions 

to eliminate some of the more partisan Federalist senior officers. 

Henry Dearborn,

by Walter M. Brackett

(U.S. Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 39 ••••

The president likewise consolidated Army units to reduce the need 

for field officers. Finally, Jefferson created the rank of colonel for the 

infantry regiments and the Corps of Artillery, which allowed him to 

appoint men of his own political sentiments to these positions. 

Since the Army never reached the authorized strength of 5,438 

men, the 1802 bill did little to actually reduce the size of the Army. 

On 19 December 1801, the Army had 248 officers, 9 cadets, and 

3,794 enlisted men in four regiments of infantry, two of artillery and 

engineers, and two companies of light dragoons. Thus, when the new 

legislation placed a troop limit of 3,289 (a 40-percent decrease), it 

meant an actual reduction of only several hundred men. With the 

assistance of his personal secretary, Lt. Meriwether Lewis, President 

Jefferson evaluated all officers for their political reliability. Ultimately 

he dismissed about one-third of the Army’s officers after the Military 

Peace Establishment Act of 1802, and most of them—seventy-six 

officers—were Federalists. By 1 June of that year, the Army had 172 

officers, and an authorized enlisted strength of 3,040 men, although 

fewer were actually present for duty.

Meanwhile, Congress established a new entity, the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers, through the Military Peace Establishment Act

of 1802. The organization consisted of ten cadets and seven officers, 

and was located at West Point. Lawmakers intended for the Corps 

to form a military academy, the superintendent of which was to be 

Long Barracks at West Point, by unknown artist

(West Point Museum Collections, United States Military Academy)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 40 ••••

the Army’s chief engineer. Jefferson and the Republicans had initially opposed the plan to create a military college, but after 1800, 

they embraced the idea as a reform measure. This effort attempted 

to end American reliance on foreign engineers for technical military 

expertise. Additionally, the establishment of the academy at West 

Point advanced Jefferson’s “republicanization” of the Army, as the 

new school would train young men loyal to Republican principles for 

service in the Army. Under the Jefferson administration, most cadet 

appointments went to Republican families. The act further allowed the 

president to select the officers who would teach at West Point, thereby 

further solidifying his control over the school’s ideological bent.

Helping to Build the Nation

Jefferson’s support for a Corps of Engineers also reflected his 

philosophy that the Army should perform services beneficial to the 

new nation. He believed that in peacetime the Army’s mission went 

beyond defense to include “building the nation.” Such opportunities 

were not long in coming. Army troops built military roads between 

Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and within the Creek Indian lands of 

Mississippi and Alabama. Soldiers not only improved and expanded 

the Natchez Trace, linking Nashville with the Mississippi River, but 

they also provided small garrisons along the trail to protect travelers 

from outlaws.

Jefferson called upon the Army again when he purchased the 

Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. The purchase included 

over 825,000 square miles of land, including portions of what would 

become fifteen U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, most of 

which had never been explored by Europeans or Americans. To 

rectify this situation, Jefferson authorized what became known as 

the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The president decided to use the 

Army for this mission, both because the military had experience in 

sustaining lengthy and difficult expeditions, and because the military 

could represent the power and authority of the federal government 

in a manner a civilian exploratory effort would not. The president 

chose recently promoted Capt. Meriwether Lewis, his personal 

secretary and Virginia neighbor, to lead the effort. Lewis selected 

William Clark to serve as his co-leader, although he actually ranked 

as a lieutenant. Clark was a former Army infantry officer who had 

fought in Anthony Wayne’s campaign in Ohio before resigning his 

commission in 1796.

Jefferson’s purpose was to find an all-water northwest passage 

across the continent to the Pacific, to establish friendly relations with 
•••• 41 ••••

western Indians, to help expand American trade, and to gather natural 

information on the west’s plants, animals, and geography. Finally, 

the president had a national security motive. In the South, Spain, 

fearful that the United States would invade northern Mexico and 

capture its silver mines, sought to prevent Americans from moving 

westward from the lower Mississippi River. To the North, Jefferson 

was concerned that Canadian fur trappers working in the Rockies 

and northern plains would prompt Great Britain to lay formal claim 

to the area. Finally, he wished to learn what threat the Indian tribes 

west of the Mississippi might pose to future American expansion. 

The expedition lasted two years and four months, and covered 

7,689 miles. Thirty-four soldiers initially accompanied Lewis and 

Clark on the journey, twenty-six of whom traveled all the way to 

the Pacific coast. Beginning at St. Louis, the group started up the 

Missouri River in May 1804. There were several tense encounters on 

the Great Plains upon encountering the Teton Sioux, but the party 

managed to pass, and wintered the first year at the Mandan villages 

Portraits of Meriwether Lewis (left) and William Clark,

by Charles Willson Peale

(Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia) •••••••••••••••
•••• 42 ••••

on the upper Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. The 

explorers kept detailed journals, produced excellent maps of their 

journey, and collected specimens of dozens of plants and animals. 

The soldiers traversed the vast open plains and the rugged Rocky 

Mountains the next year, and spent the second winter by the Pacific 

Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, where they established 

Fort Clatsop. They left the West Coast in March 1806 to return home 

and reached St. Louis on 23 September 1806. Spanish authorities, 

secretly informed of the Corps of Discovery’s mission by none other 

than the U.S. Army’s senior officer, General Wilkinson—a paid Spanish informant—attempted to capture Lewis and Clark as they traveled 

up the Missouri River, but failed to intercept them.

Lewis and Clark’s western expedition was the most extensive 

exploration of the western territory, but it was not the only such operation at the time. Capt. Zebulon M. Pike led a foray in 1805 north 

from St. Louis to the upper reaches of the Mississippi River to map 

waterways, to examine wildlife and vegetation, and to send back 

“whatever curiosities” the men collected. There was an unwritten 

military reconnaissance aspect of this mission as well, in which Pike, 

a veteran of the battle at Fallen Timbers, was to clear out British fur 

traders in the region, apparently with the encouragement of Secretary Dearborn and General Wilkinson. The following year, Pike and 

Lt. James B. Wilkinson, the general’s son, set out together to scout 

routes to northern Mexico, to gather intelligence, and to discover 

the courses of several major rivers, including the Red, which would 

put the soldiers close to the Spanish stronghold of Santa Fe. On the 

Arkansas River, Pike turned west searching for the Rocky Mountains 

with twenty men, and sent Lieutenant Wilkinson with a handful of 

soldiers to report back to his father. Pike reached the Rockies in what 

is now Colorado by November, but by then harsh weather made for 

severe hardships for his party. In February 1807, a detachment of 

Spanish soldiers found the Americans, escorted them to Santa Fe, 

on to Mexico, and eventually back to U.S. soil. 

While exploratory missions in the West occupied a small part of 

the Army and a large part of Jefferson’s intellectual interests, most of 

America’s land forces were located at key posts in Louisiana. The U.S. 

Army took formal possession of Louisiana on 20 December 1803, 

establishing garrisons at New Orleans and several smaller posts on 

the southern waters of the Mississippi River. The Army sent over four 

hundred men in six artillery companies and four infantry companies 

of the 2d Infantry to occupy New Orleans, an isolated but strategic 

post. Due to the uncertain loyalties of the French populace in New 
•••• 43 ••••

Orleans, U.S. Army regulars were essential to its defense. The new 

territory consisted of two administrative districts, Orleans in the 

south and Louisiana to the north. Capt. Amos Stoddard served as 

the district commandant at St. Louis, headquarters of the Louisiana 

District, to “exercise civil as well as military powers until a territorial 

government could be organized.” General Wilkinson received the 

appointment of governor of the Louisiana Territory. At the same 

time, William C. C. Claiborne, formerly governor of the Mississippi 

Territory, became Orleans Territory governor.

Securing the Spanish Frontier

Although the Louisiana Purchase removed France as a potential 

threat to the new nation, another, Spain, remained. The primary 

threat to American interests early in Jefferson’s administration was 

Spanish presence in the Floridas and in lands west of the Mississippi 

River, unsettlingly close to New Orleans. As recently as October 

1802, the Spanish had closed the port of New Orleans to American 

goods coming down the Mississippi, and they had also denied the 

U.S. government’s request to supply Fort Stoddert in the Mississippi 

Territory by passing through Louisiana free of duties. Consequently, 

upon ratification of the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson 

moved troops to southern Louisiana to deter any potential Spanish 

advance in the region. (See Map 2.)

Spanish possession of East and West Florida likewise posed a 

danger to American security and prosperity in the South. Settlers 

in the Mississippi Territory, which also included the future state 

of Alabama, needed access to the port town of Mobile in Spanish 

territory in order to send their agricultural products to market. As 

with New Orleans, the Spanish could cripple American affluence in 

the region by limiting access to harbors on the Gulf Coast. Jefferson 

alternatively tried to bully and bribe Spain to part with the Floridas, 

and even concentrated troops along the Mississippi border with West 

Florida at Fort Stoddert. Despite the bluff, Jefferson failed to secure 

this territory for the United States.

Over the next several months, American soldiers occupied additional military posts, including Concordia, across the Mississippi 

River from Natchez; Plaquemines, upstream from New Orleans; 

and Balize, on the Gulf of Mexico. A small contingent of soldiers 

in March 1804 also occupied the Arkansas Post at the mouth of the 

Arkansas River, and Fort Miro on the Washita River, the following 

month. American forces took over Natchitoches, an old French settlement on the Red River, from a small Spanish garrison in April, and 
•••• 44 ••••

renamed it Fort Claiborne, garrisoning it with one hundred seventy 

regulars by the end of the year. By late 1804, almost seven hundred 

soldiers occupied nine outposts or forts in the Louisiana Territory.

Unfortunately, the border between American Louisiana and Spanish 

possessions in Mexico had not been firmly established. Jefferson held 

that the border was the Sabine River, and Wilkinson recommended the 

establishment of Army posts on this river to counter the Spanish, who 

regarded the boundary as being eighty miles farther east. In this uncertainty, Dearborn directed Wilkinson to prepare plans for an invasion 

of Spanish territory, should such a contingency become necessary. In 

October 1805, one thousand Spanish troops marched eastward and ocMississippi R

Mississippi R

Pearl R

Alabama R

Ouachita R

Red R

Red R

Sabine R

Ya zoo R

Fort Adams Fort Stoddert

U n o  c i a l B o u n d a r y

Nacogdoches Natchitoches

Mobile

New Orleans

Terre aux Boeufs

Natchez

Baton Rouge M E X I C O

( S PA I N )

W E S T F L O R I D A

( I N D I S P U T E W I T H S PA I N )

L O U I S I A N A

T E R R I T O R Y

O R L E A N S

T E R R I T O R Y

M I S S I S S I P P I

T E R R I T O R Y

L O W E R M I S S I S S I P P I T H E AT E R

1803–1811

0 50 100 150

Miles

Map 2
•••• 45 ••••

cupied two forts east of the Sabine River near Natchitoches. The United 

States regarded the move as a hostile territorial encroachment. Jefferson 

responded by ordering soldiers along the frontier “to be in readiness 

to protect our citizens, and to repel by arms” any Spanish aggression.

In January 1806, Lt. William Piatt led a small force of American 

soldiers to the Spanish garrison of Nacogdoches, Mexico, to demand 

that the Spanish recognize the Sabine River as the international border and to withdraw all of their forces to the west of it. The garrison 

commander refused to comply. The following month, an Army detachment under Capt. Edward D. Turner advanced against Bayou Pierre, a 

Spanish post northwest of Natchitoches, and forced the Spanish troops 

there to withdraw west of the Sabine. In March, Wilkinson ordered 

Col. Thomas Cushing of the 2d Infantry to move up the Red River 

to Natchitoches with three companies and two field pieces to bolster 

American forces there, although Cushing was ordered not to provoke a 

conflict. In the spring, Wilkinson received orders from Washington to 

move from his St. Louis headquarters to New Orleans, to take charge 

of the tense situation personally, but the general delayed leaving St. 

Louis until late August. Wilkinson joined Cushing on 22 September 

at Natchitoches with enough additional troops to bring the force there 

to twelve hundred men, and sent a message to the nearby Spanish 

commander, Col. Simon de Herrera, to abandon his nearby position. 

Fighting seemed imminent, although Wilkinson had too few troops 

to launch an extended campaign across the Sabine against Herrera’s 

one thousand men. By early fall, the Spanish defused the situation by 

withdrawing to Nacogdoches, and in November leaders of both belligerents had established a neutral buffer zone fifty miles wide between 

the Sabine River and the Arroyo Hondo to the east, which Spain 

claimed was the actual border. With hostilities now unlikely, Wilkinson 

returned to New Orleans by 22 November, while Maj. Moses Porter 

of the artillery marched most of the soldiers there as well, leaving 

one company of troops to garrison Natchitoches. No further military 

flare-ups occurred in the region, but the Jefferson administration and 

Congress kept a watchful eye on the Spanish positions at Baton Rouge, 

Mobile, Pensacola, and along the Sabine River.

The Army and the Second Jefferson

Administration, 1805–1809

No sooner had tensions with Spain begun to ease than new 

dangers surfaced to threaten the young nation. The first took the 

form of an internal conspiracy to slice off a significant portion of the 
•••• 46 ••••

United States to form a new state 

or even nation. The second, more 

traditional in form, was renewed 

confrontation with Great Britain 

over British actions on the high 

seas.

The Burr Conspiracy 

In 1805, Jefferson’s former 

vice president, Aaron Burr, began 

formulating a scheme to carve a 

new empire out of American and 

Spanish territory in the West. 

Although his plans remain murky 

to this day, he hoped to seize New 

Orleans with a force of volunteers 

recruited along the Ohio River 

frontier. Once in control of the 

city, he planned to separate Louisiana and other western states and 

territories from the United States, 

move into West Florida and 

northeastern Mexico, and add 

those mostly unsettled Spanish possessions to a new realm. Presumably, 

Burr would lead the new independent empire, as a way of reviving his 

political fortunes after having mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton 

in an 1804 duel. Burr succeeded in enticing several officers of Western 

garrisons into his scheme. By far his most powerful co-conspirator, 

however, was none other than the commanding general of the U.S. 

Army and governor of the Louisiana Territory, General Wilkinson.

The former vice president expected the general to use his soldiers 

to participate in his secession schemes by securing New Orleans 

and invading Spanish-held territory. The conflict with Spain in the 

southwest provided Wilkinson cover to redeploy troops to critical 

areas in Louisiana to bolster Burr and Wilkinson’s plans of removing 

the Spanish threat and establishing a separate western empire along 

the lower Mississippi and in Texas. Burr began to put his plan into 

effect in the summer of 1806, but quickly lost support from his backers, many of whom now regarded his design as foolhardy. After he 

received a warning from Dearborn to steer clear of Burr, Wilkinson 

double-crossed him in the fall of 1806, advising President Jefferson of 

all he knew of the conspiracy, while concealing his own role in Burr’s 

Aaron Burr,

by John Vanderlyn, 1802

(New-York Historical Society)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 47 ••••

machinations. Prior to Burr’s capture, Wilkinson moved most of his 

troops along the southern Mississippi to New Orleans and bolstered 

the city’s defenses with militia units to prevent the conspirators from 

taking it by force.

President Jefferson regarded Burr’s plan as both a filibustering 

expedition against northern Mexico and a treasonous attack against 

American possessions in the new Louisiana territory. Once convinced 

of the serious nature of Burr’s plot, the president commanded all 

civil and military officers to help quash the former vice president’s 

activities under the 1794 Neutrality Act, which made it illegal for 

an American citizen to wage war against any country at peace with 

the United States. The War Department also sent orders to Army 

garrisons along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to arrest Burr and 

his conspirators, and otherwise suppress the illegal venture. A small 

detachment of soldiers from Fort Stoddert led by Lt. Francis P. 

Gaines eventually apprehended Burr in the Mississippi Territory in 

February 1807. Much to Jefferson’s chagrin, a jury acquitted him of 

all charges in September 1807. 

For a time the situation along the Mississippi was “urgent and 

critical,” but with Burr in custody, his scheme collapsed. Wilkinson 

tried to portray himself as the savior of the western lands. Despite 

being suspected of duplicitous conduct with Burr and Spanish 

authorities, in June 1808 a military board of inquiry exonerated 

him after six months of hearings. Jefferson nevertheless removed 

Wilkinson from his position as governor of the Louisiana Territory, 

replacing him with Meriwether Lewis. Jefferson and Dearborn also 

faced the unwelcome fact that many Army officers serving in the 

west had sympathized with Burr’s conspiracy, and some of them had 

openly supported it. In the end, in part due to the threats posed to 

the United States by both Spain and France, Jefferson decided not 

to purge the officer corps of those whom he suspected of being part 

of Burr’s cause.

The Chesapeake Affair and the Expansion of the Army, 1807–1809

While the prosecution of Aaron Burr proceeded during the summer of 1807, an incident involving the Navy in waters off the Virginia 

coast suddenly shifted the attention of the Jefferson administration 

from the Spanish in the southwest to the British in the Atlantic. The 

event not only affected the strength and organization of the Army, 

but it also was a contributing factor to the outbreak of war five 

years later between the United States and Great Britain. On 22 June 

1807, the U.S. Navy frigate Chesapeake sailed from Hampton Roads, 
•••• 48 ••••

Virginia, bound for the Mediterranean Sea. Several hours later, the 

Chesapeake encountered the British frigate Leopard, which stopped 

the American vessel and demanded that Royal Navy officers be allowed to board and search for deserters. When Chesapeake’s captain 

refused, Leopard fired three broadsides at the ship, killing three and 

wounding eighteen of the crew. Unprepared for battle, Chesapeake

surrendered without firing a shot, and allowed the British to search 

the ship, during which time Royal Navy officers discovered and removed four alleged British deserters, although only one was actually 

a British subject. Once the ship returned to Hampton Roads, news of 

the humiliating event spread quickly, and Americans were outraged 

at the attack on their vessel in American waters and the violation of 

the nation’s sovereignty. Jefferson, Dearborn, and Wilkinson began 

to work on defensive plans, although the president wanted to “avoid 

. . . every act which would precipitate general hostilities.”

As war fever grew across America, Dearborn recommended augmenting the Army to fifteen thousand troops, in addition to thirty-two 

thousand volunteers to serve for three months, primarily for training 

under the War Department’s authority. Jefferson was slower to act. 

He understood the pitfalls of depending on militia organizations to 

defend the country, especially since his numerous calls for reforms of 

the militia system had gone unheeded during his presidency. He called 

a special session of Congress to react to the Chesapeake affair, but 

made no recommendations to Congress, which took up the issues of 

harbor defenses, naval preparations, and the militia. A few members 

of Congress maintained the traditional Republican opposition to a 

strong standing force, while others joined in with harsh criticism of 

the Army’s role in supporting Burr’s plot “to dismember the Union.” 

In February 1808, Jefferson advised Congress of his plan to 

enlarge the nation’s military establishment. This included raising 

an additional 6,000 soldiers to bring the authorized strength of 

the Army to just over 9,000 men. The president also recommended 

creation of an additional force of 24,000 volunteers to serve twelve 

months, armed and equipped by the federal government. After some 

objections from traditionalists over the size of the force, particularly 

since the United States was not then at war with any nation, Congress approved $4 million to augment the Army and militia and to 

construct 188 gunboats to defend the country’s seaports. The Army’s 

strength reached 2,775 men in 1807, and 5,712 the next year, although 

recruiting was slow. The increase in regiments not only meant more 

men in the ranks, but also more opportunities for the Jefferson administration to appoint Republican officers to lead them, men of firm 
•••• 49 ••••

Republican sympathies, who would pose no problems as did those 

officers on the western frontier who had supported Aaron Burr. Few 

men of a Federalist bent received appointments, and by the end of 

the year, Republicans made up a majority of the officer corps. The 

Army reached a strength of about 5,700 troops, although many 

recruits were “miserable wretches” lacking “discipline and order.”

Meanwhile, Jefferson struck a nonviolent blow at nations that 

refused to recognize American maritime rights. In late 1807 and 

early 1808, Congress passed three embargo acts. These acts banned 

American ships from engaging in most foreign trade in an attempt 

to coerce Britain and France to stop their mutual harassment of 

American neutral shipping and, in the case of Britain, the impressment of seamen on American vessels. The effort backfired in that it 

caused severe economic hardship in the United States, particularly 

in the Northeast where Federalists were numerous. 

Due to the widespread practice of smuggling on land and sea to 

avoid the provisions of the embargo, Jefferson called on the Army 

and Navy to enforce Congress’ commercial restrictions. Although 

Jefferson had strongly opposed the use of a federal Army to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, he signed a law in March 1807 

authorizing the use of regulars to put down domestic disorders, 

including “all cases of insurrection or obstruction to the laws.” In 

the summer of 1808, the president ordered General Wilkinson to 

send recruits to the Canadian border to assist U.S. customs officers 

enforcing the trade ban and to battle “the armed resistance to the 

embargo laws” from Maine to Detroit. Three companies of untried 

regulars in New York marched from their training camps to Sackets 

Harbor, Oswegatchie, and Plattsburgh to enforce the embargo in 

place of the state militia, whose members often sympathized with 

the smugglers. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin observed in July 

that “we must depend entirely on force for checking this manner of 

violating the law,” and to prevent smuggling along the Great Lakes, 

“nothing but force on land . . . will put a stop to the violations.” He 

recommended to Jefferson that “we must have a little army along the 

Lakes and British lines generally,” since along the border “the people 

are now there altogether against the law.” 

By early 1809, opposition to the embargo became so strong that 

Congress passed the “Force Bill,” which authorized Jefferson to use 

the federal military establishment and state militias to enforce American commercial laws. The act generated opposition in much of the 

country, particularly among those who resented federal interference 

with the state militia organizations. Jefferson declared entire towns 
•••• 50 ••••

to be in a state of treason for opposition to his embargo in the form 

of civil disobedience. In the face of public opposition to the acts, 

Congress repealed them in the closing days of the Jefferson administration. In their place, the legislature enacted the Non-Intercourse 

Law of 1809 that banned trade just with France and Britain. Enforcement of this law was no easier than its predecessors, and smuggling 

remained rampant. Ultimately, Jefferson’s experiment with coercive 

trade policies, in which the U.S. Army found itself in the role of 

enforcer against the people, failed miserably.

Clouds on the Horizon, 1809–1812

James Madison of Virginia was inaugurated on 4 March 1809 as 

the fourth president of the United States. William Eustis, an Army 

surgeon during the Revolutionary War, became Madison’s new secretary of war. Together they faced an increasingly tense situation 

both with Native Americans on the northwestern frontier and with 

Great Britain, which continued to refuse to recognize the rights of 

American neutral shipping. These developments led American leaders to consider how the United States should best prepare for war.

In early 1810, Secretary Eustis favored enlisting fifty thousand 

volunteers, who would be equipped and armed by the federal 

government, and led by officers appointed by the president. Six 

thousand of these men were to be in artillery and rifle companies. At 

the same time, President Madison asked Congress to mobilize up to 

one hundred thousand militiamen to fill out Regular Army regiments 

up to their authorized limits. He also requested an additional force 

of twenty thousand short-term volunteers to be available on short 

notice. The projected cost for these measures was $6,037,000, a huge 

sum given the decreased federal revenues as a result of the various 

economic measures enacted by Congress over the past several years. 

Congress rejected these requests. Instead, it granted the president the 

power to call on the states for militia if necessary, but otherwise, it 

did little to strengthen the regular force. 

In the summer of 1811, Madison and the Republicans in Congress 

pressed for war preparations and finances. In late November, 1811, the 

Army consisted of 5,447 men located at twenty-three posts, still commanded by General James Wilkinson, with most of the soldiers stationed 

near New Orleans. Madison hoped to fill up the ranks of the regulars to 

the authorized strength of 10,603 soldiers, create an auxiliary force of 

regulars, increase arms manufacturing within the United States, and obtain supplies for state militias. After debating a number of proposals from 
•••• 51 ••••

the House of Representatives and 

President Madison, in January 

1812, Congress voted to raise 

25,000 new men for the Regular 

Army in thirteen regiments of 

2,000 men each. It also approved 

the creation of a volunteer force of 

30,000 men, financed by a $1 million appropriation, although the 

War Department had previously 

called for 50,000 volunteers. In 

April 1812, Congress also called on 

the state governors to have 80,000 

militiamen ready for defensive service within the United States. Two 

months later, on the eve of declaring war with Great Britain, Congress authorized two new brigadier 

generals and reduced the regular 

regiments to 1,000 men each.

During the months after 

Congress enacted legislation to 

raise volunteers, recruiting remained slow, which led to the need for more regulars. By the summer 

of 1812, the regulars numbered only 6,744. Madison found it far easier 

to raise generals than enlisted men. He appointed former Secretary 

of War Henry Dearborn as senior major general, while Thomas 

Pinckney of South Carolina also received a major generalship, with 

headquarters in Charleston. The administration appointed several 

new brigadier generals, including William Hull, Joseph Bloomfield, 

James Winchester, Thomas Flournoy, and John Chandler. Lowerranking officers of quality and experience, as well as the proper political allegiance to please Madison and the Republicans, were hard 

to find, and most Revolutionary War veterans were no longer fit for 

active service. The Madison administration accepted some Federalists 

in cases when it was unable to find politically palatable men, although 

such attempts at bipartisanship irked hard-line Jeffersonians.

The Northwestern Frontier and the Battle of Tippecanoe

While Congress moved tentatively to prepare for a possible 

war with Great Britain, the persistent demand for more land by 

American settlers continued to alienate the Indians of the Northwest. 

William Eustis,

by Walter M. Brackett

(U.S. Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 52 ••••

As William Henry Harrison, 

the governor and commander 

in chief of the Indiana Territory, superintendent of Indian 

affairs, and commissioner plenipotentiary of the United States, 

wrote: “I wish I could say the 

Indians were treated with justice 

and propriety on all occasions by 

our citizens, but it is far otherwise. They are often abused and 

mistreated.” The growing friction 

between land-hungry whites and 

the indigenous people led to a 

resurgent pan-Indian movement 

to defend native lands and way of 

life. Two prominent leaders of the 

movement included Tenskwatatwa, a religious prophet, and his 

brother Tecumseh, considered to 

be the movement’s military chief. 

In 1805, Tenskwatawa gathered a 

new community of adherents at 

Prophetstown, at the confluence 

of the Wabash and Tippecanoe 

Rivers, in the Indiana Territory. 

The gathering at Prophetstown 

of a large number of Indians alarmed Harrison and other American 

leaders, who began to consider steps to eradicate the native threat. 

Enmity against encroaching whites increased after some Indian 

leaders agreed to a treaty at Fort Wayne in September 1809, in which 

American negotiators led by Harrison obtained from the Miami, 

Potawatomi, Lenape, and Eel River Indians approximately three 

million acres mainly in Indiana’s Wabash Valley, north of Vincennes. 

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa objected that the Indian signatories did 

not have the authority to sign the treaty, and could not rightfully sell 

land commonly held with other native peoples. By 1810, Indian raids 

against white farms and settlements increased, as the Prophetstown 

leaders continued to spread the message of resistance to white 

intrusions into native lands. Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa captured 

the annual salt provisions provided by the United States to several 

friendly Indian tribes and sought to procure arms from the British. 

Tenskwatawa is portrayed 

in Ten-sqúat-a-way, the 

Open Door, Known as the 

Prophet, Brother of Tecumseh,

by George Catlin, 1830 

(Smithsonian American Art 

Museum)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 53 ••••

Rumors circulated on the frontier that the Indians planned to wipe 

out all settlers. President Madison feared that a western Indian war 

would make a potential war with Great Britain more difficult, and 

thus urged Harrison to avoid hostilities with natives. Harrison met 

with Tecumseh in order to resolve issues over land and the tide of 

settlers coming into western Indiana, but the talks accomplished little.

By 1811, Harrison began to prepare for war with the Indians of 

Prophetstown. He placed little faith in the militia organization of the 

Indiana Territory. Instead, the territorial governor requested federal 

troops to defend the territory, and if need be, to join an offensive 

against the Indians. Reluctantly, Madison and Eustis agreed to send 

the newly raised 4th Infantry under Lt. Col. John Parker Boyd to 

Vincennes to protect settlers. Many of the regiment’s new men were 

“seamen who had been thrown out of work by the embargo.” One 

observer claimed the regiment was “composed of the best materiel 

I had ever seen in any service.” Nevertheless, these men were “raw 

troops.” When Harrison learned that Tecumseh planned to travel to 

various southern Indian tribes that fall, he recognized an opportunity 

to eradicate Prophetstown while the Indian military chief was gone. 

Along with the 4th Infantry, by October Harrison had mustered 

twelve hundred men, including one detached company of the 7th 

Infantry, a company of the Rifle Regiment (armed at the time with 

muskets), Indiana militia, mounted riflemen, and one hundred twenty 

dragoons from Kentucky and Indiana. Although Tenskwatawa made 

no overtly threatening moves against Harrison’s command at Vincennes, the governor ordered his forces northward on 27 September 

“through an uninhabited country” toward Prophetstown, the army 

“being well furnished with arms, ammunition and provision.” The 

army’s march was “slow and cautious” as great care was taken to 

avoid ambushes, while most of the heavy baggage went by water. 

The soldiers marched in “two columns or files on either side of the 

road, and the mounted riflemen and cavalry in front, in the rear, and 

on the flanks,” reported Lt. Charles Larrabee. Three days later, the 

column reached the Wabash River at Battelle des Illinois, where the 

men camped and constructed a stockade they named Fort Harrison 

and several nearby blockhouses. Harrison went so far as to stage a 

mock battle near this camp, to give his green soldiers some idea of 

what to expect once the enemy was engaged.

After a few minor skirmishes and several additional attempts to 

negotiate with Tenskwatawa’s representatives, the army continued 

its march over rough terrain toward Prophetstown on 21 October, 

leaving a hundred men to guard the new stockade. Each night the 
•••• 54 ••••

column posted sentries and rose before daybreak to counter any 

potential Indian assault. By 1 November, in cold and rainy weather, 

the column crossed the Vermillion River and constructed another 

small blockhouse, all the while shadowed by Indian scouts “lurking 

in the woods.” By 6 November, the army had arrived within a few 

miles of its objective on the north bank of the Wabash and prepared 

to attack, although the Americans were unsure of the strength of 

the enemy. Reinforced by sixty Kentucky volunteers, Harrison’s 

troops advanced toward the town “very cautiously” and halted in 

front of their objective, a move that “much surprized and terrified” 

the Indians, who took up “positions behind a breastwork of logs 

which encircled the town from the bank of the Wabash,” wrote a 

soldier of the 4th Infantry. After Harrison and one of Tenskwatawa’s chiefs parleyed for a time, the governor decided to withdraw 

to a suitable campground for the night, anticipating a council with 

the Indians the next day. Several of Harrison’s officers objected to 

this plan and called for an immediate assault upon the town, but 

Harrison overruled them. The army moved to “a piece of narrow 

rising ground, covered with heavy timber, running some length into 

a marshy prairie, and about three quarters of a mile north-west of 

the town” near the Tippecanoe River, Lieutenant Larrabee reported. 

The troops encamped for the night formed in a hollow square, and 

lit large bonfires to dry their damp uniforms and cook rations for 

the next day during a windy, cold, and rainy night. Wary of a surprise attack, Harrison ordered the troops to sleep with their loaded 

arms nearby, with cartridge boxes on, bayonets fixed, and to form 

a line of battle in front of their tents, in preparation for an Indian 

attack. The general used a single rank formation “because in Indian 

warfare, where there is no shock to resist, one rank is nearly as good 

as two.” The weary troops built no entrenchments or breastworks 

to protect the camp.

Tenskwatawa initially did not intend to attack the American 

camp, but some of his more aggressive warriors goaded him into 

action. Despite their awareness of the common Indian practice of attacking at first light, Harrison had not taken the precaution of posting 

extra sentries around the camp. Consequently, when the attack came 

at 0400, the Indians overwhelmed the pickets. As the surviving sentries 

rushed back to camp, the Indians pursued, yelling “like wolves, wild 

cats and screech owls” as they came. “Aroused by the horrid yells of 

the savages close upon our lines,” the soldiers stumbled out of their 

tents into the cold rain. Some of the troops were “tardy” forming 

into their line and “had to contend with the enemy in the doors of 
•••• 55 ••••

their tents.” In the process, the men became silhouetted against the 

background of their campfires, stoked to keep them warm through 

the chilly night. One soldier wrote that “it was truly unfortunate that 

these fires were not extinguished the moment the troops retired to 

rest; for it is certain that the Indians derived a great advantage from 

this circumstance in the course of the action.”

The “dreadful attack” first struck the company of regulars 

under Capt. Robert C. Barton and some of the Kentucky militia 

Plan of the Tippecanoe Camp and Battle

(New York Public Library)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 56 ••••

commanded by Capt. Frederick Geiger on the left wing. The sudden onslaught threw the men into disorder “before they could be 

formed in any regular order.” The “Indians made four or five most 

fierce charges on our lines, yelling and screaming as they advanced, 

shooting balls and arrows into our ranks,” recalled one soldier. The 

result, reported Harrison, was “monstrous carnage.” 

Harrison was surprised by the Indians’ uncommon ferocity, but 

he soon restored order. The men “rallied and fought with a spirit 

that evinced a determination to escape the odium of cowardice,” an 

officer recorded. Many militiamen rallied at the sight of the regulars 

standing their ground, despite being inexperienced in Indian warfare 

themselves. After a charge by dismounted Kentucky dragoons failed 

to dispel the Indians, Capt. Josiah Snelling of the 4th Infantry led a 

“desperate charge at the head of his company, with success, losing 

one man, who was tomahawked by a wounded Indian. The Indians 

fell back, and for a short time, continued the action at a distance,” a 

soldier in the 4th Infantry observed. The troops maintained a steady 

fire at the warriors, who “were severely galled by the steady and well 

directed fire of the troops,” reported a regular officer. Harrison’s 

infantry fired cartridges of twelve buckshot, “which were admirably 

calculated for a night action” in which the enemy was difficult to spot.

As dawn broke, the Indians made a last attempt to break the 

American line, but part of the 4th Infantry under Maj. Samuel Wells 

gave three cheers and launched a bayonet attack supported by a detachment of dragoons that finally put Tenskwatawa’s warriors “to 

a precipitate flight.” Harrison elected not to pursue the enemy, but 

instead tended to the casualties and erected a four-foot-high breastwork around the camp to deter another assault. The Indiana governor 

reported that “the Fourth United States Regiment, and the two small 

companies attached to it, were certainly the most conspicuous for 

undaunted valor” during the battle, and “they supported the fame of 

American regulars.” Although some of the Indiana units performed 

poorly during the battle, Harrison wrote that “several of the militia 

companies were in no wise inferior to the regulars.” He reported 

that thirty-eight Indians were found dead on the battlefield, while 

thirty-seven Americans had been killed. Twenty-five soldiers died 

of wounds, and one hundred twenty-six suffered nonfatal wounds. 

The regulars accounted for about 40 percent of the losses. Many of 

the soldiers’ wounds were slow to heal, leading surgeons to surmise 

that Indian warriors had used poisoned ammunition. Additionally, 

some of the musket balls extracted from the soldiers’ wounds appeared to have been “chewed before they were inserted into rifles for 
•••• 57 ••••

the purpose of enlarging the wound and lacerating the contiguous 

flesh,” noted a historian. 

On the day after the battle, 8 November, Harrison sent a detachment 

of mounted men to Prophetstown. The dragoons entered the town and 

found only an aged woman, who informed them that the Indians had 

left in haste immediately after the action. After loading food supplies 

in the army’s wagons, Harrison burned the village before beginning the 

journey back to Vincennes the next day, low on provisions and fearful 

of a renewed Indian attack. Some of the troops resorted to eating 

horsemeat during the last few days of the march, but the troops finally 

reached the town by 19 November. Although defeated, Tenskwatawa’s 

Indians remained a potent threat, and by January 1812, the mystic’s 

followers had rebuilt Prophetstown. In the spring, attacks against 

settlers and outposts resumed, which made the result of the battle of 

Tippecanoe ambiguous at best.

On the Eve of War

Even though the western frontier remained insecure, the United 

States declared war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812. The nation 

went to war over Britain’s interference with American neutral 

trade, its impressment of American sailors, its suspected support 

for Indians hostile to the United States, and the affront of the 

Chesapeake-Leopard incident. Notwithstanding the measures passed 

in 1811 and 1812 to increase military forces, America entered the 

conflict largely unprepared, with an Army of just over six thousand 

men under arms and a Navy of only sixteen vessels. Starved of 

resources, held suspect by many, and more suited to the tasks of a 

constabulary than an army, America’s military now faced once again 

the might of one of the world’s leading powers in open warfare. 

The conflict, which Americans would call the War of 1812, would 

rage across the North American continent and the high seas until 

Congress ratified the Treaty of Ghent in February 1815. Along the 

way, America’s Army would achieve some brilliant victories and 

endure some humiliating defeats, but in the end, the nation would 

emerge with its independence assured.
•••• 58 ••••

•••

The Author

John R. Maass received his Ph.D. degree in early U.S. history from 

Ohio State University. He is a historian at the U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, currently working on War of 1812 and American 

Civil War commemorative projects. He is also on the editorial staff 

of the Journal of Backcountry Studies.
•••• 59 ••••

•••

Further Readings

Coakley, Robert W. The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic 

Disorders, 1789–1878. Army Historical Series. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988. 

Crackel, Theodore J. Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform 

of the Military Establishment, 1801–1809. New York: New York 

University Press, 1987.

Kohn, Richard H. Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation 

of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802. New York: 

Free Press, 1975.

Linklater, Andro. An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double 

Life of General James Wilkinson. New York: Walker & Company, 

2009.

Prucha, Francis P. Sword of the Republic: The United States Army on 

the Frontier, 1783–1846. New York: Macmillan, 1968.

Stewart, David O. American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Weigley, Russell F. History of the United States Army. New York: 

Macmillan, 1967.

For more information on the U.S. Army in the War of 1812, please 

read other titles in the U.S. Army Campaigns of the War of 1812 series 

published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
P I N : 1 0 0 4 7 8 – 0 0 0

MIAMI 1790-1795

Tippecanoe 1811